you’re gone &
we’re still here
firmly rooted to these scuffed floors
these ancient rituals:
we cord teeth & bitter lemongrass
around our waists
we wait in little rooms for someone to tell us
the hellmouth opened years ago
we serve you iced tea & lemon bars
& freshly pickled carrots with bright radish slices
slathered in herb butter
we lick broken glass from the floor
(we resent that you like it)
we watch you moan around the tines
of a plastic fork
as if that’s enough to soothe us
to reignite that impassionate hot glare
in our long-dead bellies where cicadas
burrow for seventeen silent years
Hannah V Warren
The author of Slaughterhouse for Old Wives’ Tales (Sundress 2024) and two chapbooks, Hannah V Warren is a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia and a Fulbright scholar. Her poetry appears in Gulf Coast, Passages North, Crazyhorse, THRUSH, and Fairy Tale Review, among others. Warren’s critical work often centers on monstrosity and aesthetics in speculative literature.
