The peach is bruised
on the dull kitchen countertop,
a lesson in what neglect can do,
what the lack of touch leaves
behind, in the wake of a silence
deepened when one body finds
an escape plan, when resentment
steeps like tea in boiling water on
a morning that has become an
emptied milk carton—the piles of
junk mail left on a chair to tumble,
a reminder in name only, that he
lived here, that you once were the
pulse in his veins.
These necessary violences
The broken stems of rotted flowers
poke up from a kitchen trash can,
the aftermath of a masquerade,
how death is never as pretty as we
paint it. Touch sensation becomes
a phantom to fingers, muscle memory
in early onset dementia—love is a
painting on a wall, a throwaway novel
in a dollar store. The heroine has
taken up arson, will cross her legs
and watch the field burn from her
window. No love letters remain.
The cleansing ritual begins.
Taylor Emily Copeland is a poet from Eastern Pennsylvania. She is the author of two chapbooks: “Caffeine kisses and long sleeves” and “Monarch”, and a micro-chapbook, “The girls no one can find”, all available from Maverick Duck Press. She is a four time Best of the Net nominee and also was nominated for Best of the Web. She reads obsessively, likes pink things, drinks too much coffee, drives aimlessly and falls in love too easily. She is unashamed of all of it.
Chantarelle's Notebook 