Pudding Magazine #69
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the conflagration of our inheritance
we clean
we clean to bare walls and floors rooms elongate like feral cats heirlooms bonfired on a dead lawn we add faux condolences drive truckloads through a narrow jamb the dancing fire hesitates dreams, nightmares, bastard spawn of T.V. and movie soundtracks resold to insomniacs all the toss-turn night WalpurgisNacht rattles our heads we wild smoldering cushions burst and flow dolls cleansed of their defilements contort in their meltings journals, albums, memoirs curl orange and red - ringlets to ashen flight we clean till what remains won't bleach or burn we dance, inviolate charwomen Jeanne d'Arcs in the purifying flames till our bones are soot, our blackened lungs remnants of screaming embers, Pompeians fired in Vesuvian kilns we, nightingales; we, maids of heaven how the Ancients honored us in tapestries set before a queen, in the nights' blooming, in a feathered voice — Yes, we cry, Yes, that's how we learned to curse and sing we clean… |