Valentina Cano

 

Eaves-Dropping

The horrid sound swam before me

like a bloated fish,

all stretched scales and choppy gills.

I stepped aside for it in a stumbling fox-trot,

its tailing appendages gaping out at me.

The sound laughed at my wide eyes.

It found a place in my ear,

my warm traitorous right one,

my terrorist in drummer’s dress.

I stopped it up with cotton and slimy oil,

my fingers reeking of salty seas,

and waited for the strangled cry

to gasp out like a quenched flame.

Sound leaking out like wax.

A Maze

There’s a chance you won’t see me again.

More than a chance.

It looms like a cave wall,

over and around you.

Its cold stone dripping into your crisp skin.

The chance grows and echoes

until you can’t see the entrance,

that toothless gape

now just a bright, taunting speck.

There’s a chance you might regret this.

I doubt it. But.

The cave may grow until

the light becomes so dark it’s light again

and you may find yourself in a classroom,

all eyes and teetering hands on you.

 All you might see is my shadow,

my vague outline

like the edge of a handkerchief

strolling by the entrance.

Obliterating that tiny speck of light.

Leftovers

My cells get brittle

becoming cheap crystal

that tinkles to the floor

My body quits

holding itself, my eyes

fall

to the floor, they roll

back and forth

back and forth

picking up dust

lint from the underside of shoes

My hair-strands knot together

but they collapse

like an old shower curtain

They are too weak

Too tired

They melt apart

I loose myself on this floor

There are parts of me all along the walls

Hangingontothefloorboards

Glancing

up at the dirty ceiling

In between/ the table's/ legs

oozing into the wood

I will continue to disintegrate

A puzzle thrown against the wall

in  frusTRAtion

And you'll continue to smile

happy I have no head.

Valentina Cano is  a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time she has either reading or writing. Her work has appeared in Exercise Bowler, and will appear in the winter editions of Blinking Cursor, Theory Train, Magnolia's Press, Cartier Street Press, Berg Gasse 19, A Handful of Dust, The Scarlet Sound, The Adroit Journal and Perhaps I'm Wrong About the World. You can find her here: http://coldbloodedlives.blogspot.com