LET’S HURT by Cat Richardson

                                                                          I want to be a lovely monster 
                                                                          my teeth could sink apple-quick
                                                                          into your shoulder you
                                                                          could pull my hair out the
                                                                          oil could burn my skin
                                                                          to ripples the ripples of
                                                                          the drowned I would
                                                                          come back from it with
                                                                          riverweed hair and exact
                                                                          revenge like knives on all
                                                                          the children they would make 
                                                                          a game of me go into
                                                                          the woods shout lovely 
                                                                          we invoke you but I wouldn’t 
                                                                          come only you can make
                                                                          me come and only
                                                                          when you let my wretched
                                                                          fingers gnarl in your hair only 
                                                                          when I am a creature made
                                                                          of freshwater pearls my hands
                                                                          pulling the banks in around us

Cat Richardson’s poetry and prose have appeared in Tin House, Lungfull! Magazine, Pleiades, and Poets & Writers. She is senior editor at The American Reader and managing editor of Bodega, www.bodegamag.com.

Her favorite sharp thing is a wit.

Back to Issue 1: Sharp Things