Didi Wood's Pick:
She says, follow the graves
by Peg Duthie
"This poem reads like a fever dream, a relentless escalation of darkly whimsical images."
Inspired by Reb Livingston
here are special hollows for the unmended: the unclosable
wound, the irreparably scarred Queen of Spades
worn out from too many unspeakable tricks. Rabbits
transfigured into reeds thump their anguished secrets
into a wind that licks the bills of co-eds' baseball caps
but fails to rub along the proper lamp. No charmed carpet
will save them, no beanstalk offer the legholds you need
to ride the giant's wife into the softest pumpkin pudding
you ever could dream of, a cradle stuffed with straw
spun into golden feathers. If you yearn to outwit death,
first you'll have to learn what to do about the apples.
Peg Duthie lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She writes courseware for the military health system and sermons for a Unitarian Universalist congregation. Her poems are forthcoming inThe Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel — Second Floor, Scifaikuest, and elsewhere. Her website is at www.nashpanache.com.