Aubade with Finches & New Mattress
by Erin Slaughter
in the story Thumbelina
feared her body so much she almost married
a mole from the ground what bureaucracy
we create to keep our hearts inside
their beautiful hells I wish for love
to be inconsequential as an oyster unsalting itself
in the gulf I chose a kind man I bought
a new mattress so as to no longer sleep
with bereavement’s nectar but I don’t know
how to keep happiness leashed
& my fear is lawless I want to be
a prettier vector today to say o swim
in my glass chest glimmering minnow I promise
never to boil you but dignity is a hearse
snaking the dry pines & in the riverbed
of summer I’m a cemetery of cypress
whittled to toothpicks snapped off along the road
from the months-ago hurricane Byron’s lover mailed him
a lock of her pubic hair with a note apologizing
coyly for the smear of blood & I’m embarrassed
to tell my lover I believe in the machinery
of the universe embarrassed to refer
out loud to anyone as my lover what do you call the person
whose skin you can fall asleep against without feeling
like a drowning victim a wet wind rolls in
to mop away the street’s magnolias my friend asks which
pair of heels will help them demand Lake Michigan
into spring I want to be good
at being so when joy hands me
a fistful of burial I say thank you
for the temporary through clenched teeth
I place my skeleton a fish-scale wafer
on the monster’s tongue surrender to the eye
of the holy feared thing at night my lover uproots my mistakes
from the bed frame in the morning the finches
are as always so blathering someday I will tell him
the story of the fox who leapt
from the balcony ledge & why
I did not follow her
Erin Slaughter is editor and co-founder of The Hunger, and the author of I Will Tell This Story to the Sun Until You Remember That You Are the Sun (New Rivers Press, 2019). Her writing has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Cincinnati Review, The Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, Split Lip Magazine, and elsewhere. Originally from north Texas, she is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at Florida State University. You can find her online at erin-slaughter.com.
