Member-only story
Watch Me Burn
Poetry
Some things never changed, like the way men’s eyes
scraped across a woman’s back if she were too loud
or the way other women flicked out their tongues,
snake-like, when they gossiped about newcomers.
The little town on the edge of Brynwar Lake sat
like a quintessential little place made for a map,
the kind of subset for day trips from the city,
but Ilda knew better than to count her eggs
before they had the chance of hatching
because she sang in tongues and danced wild
when the moon was heavy and full overhead.
No one knew a thing but her little girl, Myrda,
but small towns were not for secrets whatsoever.
*
The mistake hadn’t been moving to Brynwar —
though that might have had its own sliver of purpose —
but Myrda had been a happenstance at first,
a chance child born of a love that shouldn’t have been —
but it was, and it had burned, and it had flowered from ash.
