GOTHIC NOVEL
A woman alone is open and gaping Button hole without a button hook. She carries her muff before her like an offering Flic, flic! The eyes of strangers Slit the pause like razors. This railway carriage stinks of creosote, wet fur. “I prefer the window up, thank you” “I prefer it down” She lights a Sobranie to remind her Of Devon in the haying; the gentlemen Lean forward, reading the initials On her morocco case.
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GOTHIC NOVEL
A woman alone is open and gaping Button hole without a button hook. She carries her muff before her like an offering Flic, flic! The eyes of strangers Slit the pause like razors. This railway carriage stinks of creosote, wet fur. “I prefer the window up, thank you” “I prefer it down” She lights a Sobranie to remind her Of Devon in the haying; the gentlemen Lean forward, reading the initials On her morocco case. ![]() SHIRLEY JACKSON; A Light Upstairs This house is empty But hardly unexplored - Something lives aloft. The fat lady’s afraid because She cannot climb She sits and eats like a lonely child At a birthday, a cat along each shoulder. She lifts the tarot card and listens. Is that her heart gasping in its womb of flesh? She fears cars and crowds and planes Elevators and department stores - Reads only stories where killers Are pursued, writes only tales Where innocents are stoned. It’s hereditary. The angry villagers once burned Her grandpa’s house. She smokes anyway, lighting repeat matches in This unsafe mansion where None escape alive. November Wedding
The pregnant car disgorges Only us. It’s winter. Drunk as silver fish We beat our gills as light As hummingbirds. In amethyst ring Of drypoint trees The half-built house Gapes and swells Its timbers stink of sap. Windrill fields occlude Our crossing, so you carry me High above the thorny osiers. We sleep aloft for safety Locked and levitating In this space of air One season only, Unseen by angry outriders; Bloodless in our wedding robes As the doubled membranes Of the frozen flowers. |
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September 2022
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