Kailey Tedesco
Image by Pascal Janssen
what millenium
it’s easy to imagine starving on a full
stomach. welcome to my performance
fleece, my holographic jeans, my witchcraft in the form
of faux metal. here, you & I & our luck
noodles, lunch bags of confetti & wish-paper we fold to careful
beads. you tell me you are not you
but you frozen in wax & the wax of you still
worries over lamp flicker, over my mom
checking her body glitter in the bathroom mirror. you know her
sound-byte will soon give me a fortune, tell me a danger, tell me
of the man’s head severed by a new-form wendigo. i sit
on my wrists of wisdom, beads & everything inflatable
as jewels. my wax will carry more of me through prom nights, oak trees
& an organdy ritual of candies
only for earth. how will i hold all of it, the butterfly
clips like firmament? what storm has already
left us?
stomach. welcome to my performance
fleece, my holographic jeans, my witchcraft in the form
of faux metal. here, you & I & our luck
noodles, lunch bags of confetti & wish-paper we fold to careful
beads. you tell me you are not you
but you frozen in wax & the wax of you still
worries over lamp flicker, over my mom
checking her body glitter in the bathroom mirror. you know her
sound-byte will soon give me a fortune, tell me a danger, tell me
of the man’s head severed by a new-form wendigo. i sit
on my wrists of wisdom, beads & everything inflatable
as jewels. my wax will carry more of me through prom nights, oak trees
& an organdy ritual of candies
only for earth. how will i hold all of it, the butterfly
clips like firmament? what storm has already
left us?
moody bouqet / solarium of life
do not look to the greenhouse where i have
no hold on death. my fingernails press
love buttons excessively for i fear the smokepuff
of my existence ceasing. the body made up,
never known to anyone elsewhere & contoured
in botany colors. trim the leaves of it, leave
my goodfats for the recently heartless. why, in horror,
is the body always hung from some rafter,
imaginary? green, glass-screened has no origin; just
up & just out. i’m sick of thornewood castle, estate
of weeping sheetrock. here comes the guiltswarm, flies
condensed to lavender, softspooling what is left
of us, what is just behind us all. i wisteria-vine
through the beds of my life, poison-loiter all
through my spearmint & cola phases. i am, myself,
a sprawling mandrake, jewels glued to my inside
parts for keepsaking. why, in horror, do we never learn
the names of the bodies in the greenhouse, always
the first to go & reduced to broken omens, porch
baskets of perennials, unmentionable. i am here
to say with emojis of flora & fauna — here,
take this referent of a life unknown; it is such
a still one, isn’t it?
no hold on death. my fingernails press
love buttons excessively for i fear the smokepuff
of my existence ceasing. the body made up,
never known to anyone elsewhere & contoured
in botany colors. trim the leaves of it, leave
my goodfats for the recently heartless. why, in horror,
is the body always hung from some rafter,
imaginary? green, glass-screened has no origin; just
up & just out. i’m sick of thornewood castle, estate
of weeping sheetrock. here comes the guiltswarm, flies
condensed to lavender, softspooling what is left
of us, what is just behind us all. i wisteria-vine
through the beds of my life, poison-loiter all
through my spearmint & cola phases. i am, myself,
a sprawling mandrake, jewels glued to my inside
parts for keepsaking. why, in horror, do we never learn
the names of the bodies in the greenhouse, always
the first to go & reduced to broken omens, porch
baskets of perennials, unmentionable. i am here
to say with emojis of flora & fauna — here,
take this referent of a life unknown; it is such
a still one, isn’t it?
Lizzie Borden liked the Circus as a Girl
You must
break every bone
feed them to a neighbor,
a tiger, a step-child. Look here –
a water lily in my lung fevering
my dreams – two poppets
chasing me with pocket-watch
foreheads. It’s time I buoyed
from the Charles with my
braids
picnicking in skull-moss. You must
frame me when I’m finished;
let them paw around my innards, let them pull
ripe orchards from my gut, all pear blossom
& pigeons. Oh, grand-
jury, call me Oedipus
& Elektra. Call me safe
banishing wraiths with glitter-
twigs behind the house – my heart is still
a plunking midway organ & it
bangs out all the big
crescendos until you let it exorcise
a village of jump-rope
curses, all in
good fun & fat pockets.
break every bone
feed them to a neighbor,
a tiger, a step-child. Look here –
a water lily in my lung fevering
my dreams – two poppets
chasing me with pocket-watch
foreheads. It’s time I buoyed
from the Charles with my
braids
picnicking in skull-moss. You must
frame me when I’m finished;
let them paw around my innards, let them pull
ripe orchards from my gut, all pear blossom
& pigeons. Oh, grand-
jury, call me Oedipus
& Elektra. Call me safe
banishing wraiths with glitter-
twigs behind the house – my heart is still
a plunking midway organ & it
bangs out all the big
crescendos until you let it exorcise
a village of jump-rope
curses, all in
good fun & fat pockets.
KAILEY TEDESCO is the author of She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing) and These Ghosts of Mine, Siamese (Dancing Girl Press). Her manuscript Lizzie, Speak recently won White Stag Publishing's full-length poetry contest, and it will be published in 2019. She is the editor-in-chief of Rag Queen Periodical and an associate editor for Luna Luna Magazine. Her work can be found in Phoebe Journal, Grimoire, Bone Bouquet, Sugar House Review, and more.