margaret
saigh
saline solution
I am control
ravaged
dog in the attic
permanence of the time
maimed my mind; lucid
grip
tore up
my tongue; tops of the tree
like fingers in the sky.
Thru the phone. I found it out.
Thru the phone. Emoting
in bags; babies
in bags; wombs under eyes
capsuled sleep
feeling
the wants
moving prismatically thru
the attic of a sternum
a dog
howling
for food
to shit out
for small essential
things
Margaret Saigh is a writer, dancer, and educator based in Pittsburgh. She is the author of the chapbook CROSSED IN THE DARKER LIGHT OF TERROR (dancing girl press 2022) and a graduate of the MFA program at the Univerity of Pittsburgh.
Vanitas Still Life
somewhere
someone examines scars
the way we categorize
the luster of pearls
a scar that looks like a hydra
a scar that looks like a merry-go-round
a scar that looks like an earlobe
on a first date I am saying yes
I am drawn mostly to image
I see the meat
dragged across your plate
as the evidence of a miscarriage
my slop comets across the floor
thank god for boys and their dirty rags
curating the truth
wherein
truth is the rental
I begin my memoir
as a reminder of my youth:
what a static year it has been
tracking the deer
fluid breaches my skull like a portent
I summon broad interpretations of silence
sit in discomforted postures
Cerberus stands at the gates to your building
you very little
the plastic bones
scaffolding the bride’s cake
Artemis compiles the bow and the blood
green veils the bedroom’s great blessing
she listens to a report about a pack of urban coyotes
sharpens her arrows
is it or is it not me
spouting such pallid vulnerability
hold the spear
like a spear
lean against the wall
to maximize viewer experience
empathy is the jewelry case
an oversexed maiden of my dreams
fills with her children’s teeth
here we find the end of fixation
something like loss
the ego breaking far beneath the asphalt
the baby’s fingers growing
like corn counted and lauded
the sound a cutting tape
a very special moment
I hate my phone I hate the internet
I jog in place