Villanelle From The Mistress Of The Straw House Pig
The pig snuffled with interest around my unsuspecting living room
before he took the initiative to sprawl his balding pink body on the floral armchair,
tasting the lingering hint of skin in the air, swept up into the dustpan with a broom.
The pig had money, two brothers, two ruined houses, a history of huff and puff doom.
I had just graduated university. Charmed by his tales, I thought little of the word affair.
The pig snuffled with interest around my unsuspecting living room,
ready to please, I bought blood red apples, snowy goat’s cheese, a gold spinning loom.
He knew the finer things in life: a wife, slow-simmered enemy, crystal flatware,
tasting the lingering hint of skin in the air, swept up into the dustpan with a broom.
My some time, part time lover. He did not last forever after. Do they ever? I did not assume
he would make a habit of staying overnight. Careless. He left mud marks on the mohair.
The pig snuffled with interest around my unsuspecting living room.
My Beauty, he snarled, I once built houses. His desperation was a tart perfume.
When his dozing body pinned me to the cushions, I recalled the tempest in his glare,
tasting the lingering hint of skin in the air, swept up into the dustpan with a broom.
Still, he kept that ring in his pocket, and his face grew unbearable. A snorting, overdue groom.
I planned to journey to a new suitor, the wolf upstate with a stomach full of rocks. A millionaire.
The pig snuffled with interest around my unsuspecting living room,
tasting the lingering hint of skin in the air, swept up into the dustpan with a broom.
Villanelle from the backseat
After “Kill Her Freak Out” by Samia
Can I tell you something? I never felt so unworthy of loving.
I got into the back of your car with expectations and Rachel in the shotgun seat.
I suddenly saw myself in another ten years, still sitting there, humming.
Rachel put on a song I didn’t know. Words fluttered with ease from your singing
mouth, that mouth I thought I knew, and the question behind my eyes collected heat.
Can I tell you something? I never felt so unworthy of loving.
I took my nails into my thighs and smiled. I looked at your hands on the steering
wheel, drumming. I willed them to swerve us all into a tragedy tasting of concrete.
I suddenly saw myself in another ten years, still sitting there, humming.
Rachel poked your arm and laughed. You laughed. I watched the contact of skin, wishing
I could be an unruined friend. She is not ugly. How could she be? She looks nothing like me.
Can I tell you something? I never felt so unworthy of loving.
I bet you want her as your wife someday. You would be so happy together, living
in Oak Park with a stupid green suburbs lawn and ten green kids, all fucking lovely.
I suddenly saw myself in another ten years, still sitting there, humming.
This was a familiar melody. How could she reach you, unafraid to snap the delicate string?
When we met, I wanted to crawl beneath your sweatshirt and listen to your pulse on repeat.
Can I tell you something? I never felt so unworthy of loving.
I suddenly saw myself in another ten years, still sitting there, humming.
Whoever you are, you must wait.
After Adventure by Sherwood Anderson
Alice wakes to her nightdress dry and bunched at her hips from the activity of sleep.
She recalls the rain-soaked grass beneath her knees and thinks,
never again.
The sun peeks through the window, leaking a faint thread of gold onto her pillow.
She hauls the dressing table away from the door and walks past her mother’s sleeping
room, through the unlit kitchen.
Soon, she thinks, she will put on the pot for coffee. She returns to the lawn, once again
familiar, no longer a frightening home for her dreadful body. Her nightdress ripples
freely at her legs.
The streets are quiet, the horses still nuzzled in their hay, the earth still rich
from last night’s storm. It is not him that she wants. She wants wildflowers
to take over this lawn.
This world may not wait for her, but it also still turns. She stands on the other side
of the immeasurable misery which collects over the course of a turbulent night,
or twenty-seven monotonous years.
Alice thinks, I am alone, and then, alone connotes nothing but myself. There is still
time. Her mind is a rich wine brought from the city. Paris maybe, bitter
and impossibly complex.
GOLDA GRAIS is a writer and artist from Chicago. Her works of prose and poetry have been previously published in Up The Staircase Quarterly, BarBar, In Parentheses, Pink Disco Magazine, The Scripps College Journal, and the New York Times.