There is a teddy bear hospital on the

Coffee strip street within the

Coven laden, bookshop burdened

Town I used to live.

The windows were full-bellied with

Stuffed animals and dolls

And arms and legs and torsos

And glass eyes in wooden bowls

That stared disturbingly up

At the guileless passer-by

As a constant curio reminder

That we are all going to die.

I wandered in one day when

The harbor smell hit:

The spicy, fetid warmth

Of the live sheep transport ships.

The shop was dark and dust filled

With lagoons of yellow light

On tables covered with body parts,

Baubles, frills and the like.

I watched a child’s only love be

Rough housed and knocked about

And wondered if the children

Imagined the doctor was a god

Who glues on eyes and re-sets heads,

Shoves stuffing into holes,

His soiled and greasy fingerprints

In places that will never show.

The doll ward was overflowing

With the macabre guise of flesh,

Hanging like Salem wenches,

Their joints sinuous.

A table of severed women,

A killer’s souvenirs,

With wigs gnarled and faded,

Eyes rolling in fear.

I trailed my hand in layers

Of castor-sugar dust,

And lingered until my hair

Gathered all the fragrant must

That rises from the abandoned

Bear paw and doll face

Before repairs remove

The scars of first embrace.

This is reincarnation and in

Some sepia puddle of light

A greasy fingered deity prepares

To remove my hair and eyes.

I should wear my Gaia pendant

to the funeral supper

and eat bright foods.

Perhaps the stone she

holds aloft in tapered hands

will change colour like my eyes do

whenever I cry,

from gray to green as if

imperfection were washed

away by grief, and

not the reverse

which we know to be true.

Grief stains and impedes,

like seduction,

everything we do.

I should wear black and

not this carnal red

that will make Gaia

spit jeweled light despite  what

I consume.  When she makes the

sun her descant

and murmurs: ‘Who has died?’

I will answer: ‘Me.’

And she: ‘It is a lie.’

And I will see

my lavish flesh

supped upon, my fertility

not gone,

my hands pressed against sodden dirt.

Featured image The Goddess by Anastasiya Kimachenko

I start like a slow ticking clock, wound

by your thin fingers (notched

and bald), beveled

nails catching the hem of my hair,

my naked jaw, my trapped hands,

a winking pulse in the veridical circle

of your days.

You say I am accustomed to my cracked face:

all the distortions that seem real

are not.  All the unwashed corners

of leaping periphery just

crooked lips thrown in spectrum

against my ruined history, while

I am curled like the spine of a cat

around the body of

your twinkling breath.