Only Death to Me
Erin Emily Ann Vance
We are broken china with snakes painted on our flanks
in gold leaf.
We are the nails in your coffin.
We are the dead peacocks in your garden.
We decorate your crowns with turquoise blood.
The tomb seals like Tupperware.
And our feet?
Our feet have ears.
And our tongues?
Our tongues are laurels.
We tear your fingernails out with our prophecies
your last rites are written in butcher string
tacked to an old pine tree.
We are the shoebox
that you placed your dead cat in
and threw into the moor.
Holiness,
is a slippery fish.
We are the scales flaking into the fire.
38
Cauldron Anthology