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
This is a marvelous poem. I like the images and references and the way it breaks and flows.