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Revenge
When you swagger to the front page, boasting of all you’ve butchered…
Revenge
When you swagger to the front page,
boasting of all you’ve butchered,
my anger turns inside out,
exposing the coarse sutures of its seams.
I want to believe in karma —
I hear it’s hard to loosen the lid on that bitter business.
I want to believe in the party, the gods.
I want to be a god who swills venom from fluted glasses.
I would stretch and yawn
while I toyed with the fear that gives you sleepless nights;
I’d stalk it and tether it to a Sisyphean boulder.
Then I’d zap you into a foreign body
at the wrong place and time
and superglue your thoughts to what happens there.
Most cruelly, I’d surround you with mirrors
and force you to see your reflection through my eyes.
And then you would know:
You are that strand of hair that falls off a collar into the soup.
You are a blowup doll with a slow, steady leak.
You’d pray to me for a hand-poured miracle,
and I’d cackle and heckle
as I skinned your shame alive.
For more poetry by Susan Gold and others, follow Fourth Wave.
