Jessica Lee Richardson

Cyanide Slinger Swing

The poisoner comes with her pin drop,
door locked. Clockwork. Testing much.
Enough. Latched and left it, but she’s back.
Centuries of return. Gauze your ears.
Dance to knocks but learn a seal.
She’ll tire if you don’t crack. Oh honey.
What line of light sliced the thin day?
What lie’d she sing? Her blonde

squatting on the lawn but watch.
Clockwork. She’s in. Slurping.
A drop is all, a drop is all. It takes.
Somehow, we stand. Spit. Our veins
a fruited tea of bleach. Unerased
by morning. She pops by. Tinctures
clacking. And again, we will not die.
And again. Door flaps in the wind.

I vibrate and parch to know the sun.
Organs slink, clockwork, to smell her feet,
grass a wallow under grill slop.
When will she come kill us again
and how will it sting? Sometimes
we even go outside to shake.
Plates of dirt, a swing. Where’s our
poisoner? This is what’s living.