still life with candle
in the event that you’ve lost me in the dead / of winter—know i am probably somewhere trying
to stay lost. probably somewhere / in the middle of eating my bodyweight in coffeecake—putting
off / shopping & buying & praying that money finds a hole / to die in. praying i start believing in
prayer again / praying the money grows more trees that never get cut down that never / get found.
in the event that you find me return me / to somewhere i didn’t come from somewhere / i might
belong maybe in the dead of winter that hides its green / under layers of cold a place not for the
weak where i can see the breath / leaving my body where my body is my body that carries me
through / the night the trees not found to the edge of the forest / lays me down next to a fire
someplace / i might sleep through winter & wake in a bed / of all my flowers that bloomed
in the dark.
her
after femme piquée par un serpent
her gaze is upward—but if she had
eyes, likely
they’d be rolling
to the back of her
head. hands—one behind, running
through ringlet curls,
another gripping
marble fabric—the would-be
sheet beneath the weight
of her arching
figure. a leg extends, relaxes,
highlights honesty in her
curves, dimples in her
hips, dimension and
the rhythm she must feel
pulsing through
her core. the serpent
appears slowly, as an accessory
might come to focus
when you want to know more
of who she is. he’s wrapped
around her, writhing
*
before translating the french, i took
piquée to mean
a sort of climax—
culminating before us
at the hands
of this creature.
instead, we’re asked
to believe she is bitten,
engulfed by anguishing
venom feeding
off her gentle
conquered heart.
*
it is at this moment
i imagine
she’s forgotten
all about him.
as he tightens, still
around her wrist—offering
thanks for allowing him
to witness—hold a brief
stake in this state
of ravenous bliss.
with every gaze, her body
sinks deeper—she’s no longer
with us, she’s every-
-where, rapture
contained in a form
we might comprehend.
it is not enough
to say
she is bitten—she is
consuming
she is all
we’ll ever need
to say of pleasure—this body
that is measured
by agony
Hailey Gross is a writer, editor, and educator from Los Angeles with an MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University. She was a finalist for Frontier Poetry’s 2023 Award for New Poets and a winner of the AWP 2024 Intro Journals Project. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in phoebe, Laurel Review, Zone 3, Iron Horse Literary Review and elsewhere.