A Word From the Fat Lady

BY GABRIELLE CALVOCORESSI

It isn’t how we look up close

so much as in dreams.



Our giant is not so tall,

our lizard boy merely flaunts



crusty skin- not his fault

they keep him in a crate



and bathe him maybe once a week.

When folks scream or clutch their hair



and poke at us and glare and speak

of how we slithered up from Hell,



it is themselves they see:

the preacher with the farmer’s girls



(his bulging eyes, their chicken legs)

or the mother lurching towards the sink,



a baby quivering in her gnarled

hands. Horror is the company



you keep when shades are drawn.

Evil does not reside in cages.



 

mmemiiiii

Submitted by mmemiiiii on

good

shawnytucker

Dark, deep, speaks more than the reader is prepared for. What an amazing poem.