Slow songs and addiction
were filling a hole in me.
empty, what I desperately
wanted to be. My father’s throat
laced with white, cannibal vines
that glowed in the dark.
Only he could see them.
Plants were dying on the sill,
I opened up my calves
like a sunrise full of red.
When he died, I bought fish,
I filled an aquarium with cichlids
and sucker mouths,
watched them swim.
Spring was too bright,
the tulips and hyacinths,
unsympathetic, blooming
with vicious force.
In dreams, I was lost
in anatomy museums
surrounded by secrets
on display, obscene and quiet.
Imagine the colors beneath your skin,
how fragile the filigree of nerves.
When he died, I stopped believing
in ghosts. I grew up, studied biology
drank clear liquor to feel clean.
Erin Cisney is a graduate of Franklin & Marshall College and currently resides in Pennsylvania with her husband and two sons. Her poetry has previously appeared in The Spry Literary Journal, VAYAVYA, Camroc Press Review and Rust + Moth.
–Foreground Art by Charles Simms
–Background Art by Mario Mencacci