by Jackie Delaney
Suddenly, I was the slug that got stepped on, guts on the green-
grass lawn like the inside of a grape. I had to come up with
the ways to fix myself. I planted bulbs and thought of my grandmother.
Believed in one daily pill, then the other. Miracled the wine
to water. Pretended I wasn’t afraid of jumping into the icy sea.
Once in, I could feel the health benefits. Careful: the only lines
should be happy. The skin should be honey. Soon, it was too late to stop.
Stretching and om-ing and SPF and steam. Cleared this and that.
Smeared this and that. And in the end, late summer girl, you
had done all the things you were supposed to do—you fed
and watered the gardens, you pruned and pruned and pruned,
but the roses could not be any thinner. Even with a scissor
to every dead head, a snip of each thorn—the bud you waited
for was plucked by a sparrow, who left it for a beetle, who then,
seeing the wide brutal world above, threw her arms up
and rolled onto her silver back, laughing ugly and loud.
Jackie Delaney is a writer based in Massachusetts. Her poems have been published in Hole In The Head Review, Dream Pop, Deluge, and Audeamus. She is currently an editor at Harvard University.
Emerge Literary Journal 