The old era smelled rotten

like rancid motor oil. On the horizon,

machinations of gods

 

rumbled like impending darkness,

releasing missing letters

and links upon the world

 

to spell the message:

The world is collapsing.

What are you looking for?

 

In response we extracted

warped notes from musicals

like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 

 

injecting them into mirrors

so we could watch them transform

into red, malignant storms.

 

We were always singing ballads

of stolen adulthood

and curtailed childhood

 

until we learned how to make

enchantments from broken strands

and release songs of judgment

 

and decay, wearing necklaces

the wind did not finish. Underground,

skeletons of horses and dogs

 

pulsed like phosphorescent ghosts.

We danced with them in the basement,

tuning in to radio static that crackled

 

under a dangling bulb, mercury everywhere.

Strings of little lights burned all night,

coating our tongues bright gold.

 

Susan Michele Coronel

Susan Michele Coronel is a New York City-based poet and educator. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including Spillway 29,The Inflectionist Review, Gyroscope Review, The Night Heron Barks, Prometheus Dreaming, One Art, Funicular, TAB Journal, Ekphrastic Review, and Passengers Journal. In 2020, she received a Parent Poet Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. This year, she received a Pushcart nomination and was a first runner-up for the Beacon Street Prize. She recently completed a manuscript of her first book.

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