Two Poems from Arielle Lancaster-LaBrea

Like a victim

You unfurl your s's like a snake
stalking a field mouse then snap
back and watch the spill of red
with a half grin and a sense of
accomplishment, watch your voice
coil around me, violating the last
shred of dignity I had, cover my
eyes with calla lilies and tell
me you are preserving me for something
deeper, something more profound,
hold me tight, so tight, under the
clear thickness and let this last gasp
be the one that I remember on the way
out, on the way to sanctity, on the
way to my retribution, the way it
fills the whole of me. Take some
Polaroids for posterity, but unbind
my limbs for the camera. How I loved
my skin before the rope burns, how
I adored my softness before you let
the earth swallow me.



Breathing (for Layla Grace)

It is better to give up.
These machines are not keeping
your hair flowing, your body in motion.
The poison inside you has left you a
fish gutted, a lifeless shell.
It is time to go now, little one,
time to return to sand and sea,
time to release the last rope that ties
you to your mother, your father.
Release your long gown and watch it
slowly descend into the canyon.
There are other mountains to climb now.


Arielle Lancaster-LaBrea is the editor of the online poetry zine, Thick With Conviction. She works a daily job that isn't quite as rewarding, but figures most people do that, too. She loves rock music, relaxing outside with a coffee or a beer and a cigarette, reading old and new poetry and a ton of other things that do not need to go in her so-called 'poetic bio', which is entire devoid of publication credits, until now.

                                                                            back