Poetry

Flood G photo

By

Ahja Fox

Labradorescence

It is the same every night

vocalized kicks        spasms          fits

Swallow three moonstones

to see the future

lick the dove pendant

around the nurse’s neck

pluck the strings of lavender kites

ask the stars do I smell sick

Paper dolls are best made

out of lab test results

lashes dusted over their bodies

jello smeared across the face

Boys Love Ravishing Girls Like Dieters Love Greek Yogurt!

I finger those collection tube caps

arm in a pillowcase

Phlebotomy sounds like sex

sounds like fuck

in the back of a hearse

because death likes when young girls

work

Sheets are shrines against my bed

cough radicle

root

Etymology of Greek and Latin

breathing in the hospital rooms

Floors are always lime green

in the children’s ward

means suffering will end

I pick green candies

arrange them along my stomach

tell friends a tea-length chiffon dress

that makes others taste mint juleps

will do just fine for prom or a funeral.

*the italicized part is a mnemonic for phlebotomy’s Order of Draw

Aluminum Tongue/ Examining a Body

I pull a rosary

of soda pop tabs from your mouth,

bubbles wispy on my own tongue.

Teeth cannot be distinguished

from earrings given by your brother,

all playdough and blade,

his hands, your eyes: land

of anomalous things.

Matchstick cherry heads

grazing the cheeks of Alma dolls,

limbs of daddy long legs stapled

to paper towel suits—

you knew what you were doing

in that blue plastic canal

with the dead canaries, girl.

It isn’t coincidence. Your nails: obsidian

specks, random letters.

You worshipped lip smackers and flue gas.

I know your tongue:

aluminum, strawberry

kiwi soot from some boys jeans.

I cry when the sink swallows

my hair, but you made a crown

of your baby’s bones, ate

syllables from obituaries in Sunday’s

paper, tossed your breath

to walls of a 7-Eleven

where you listened to 90s music,

popped oxy, made love

in your favorite black rose halter top.

Someone must’ve told you it is easy

to be loyal to a dead thing.

Ahja Fox

Ahja Fox resides in Aurora, Colorado. She is an avid reader, dancer, and researcher of all things morbid and supernatural. Her other passion is acting as co-host/ co-partner for Art of Storytelling (a reading series in Denver). You can find her work published or forthcoming in Driftwood Press, Rigorous, Noctua Review, Boned, SWWIM , Taxicab Magazine, and more. Stay up-to-date on her reading/performance schedule and publications by following her on Instagram and Twitter at aefoxx.