The Silver-Haired Woman

Lynn Finger

 

up the street from us woman

                invites neighbors

to her holiday

party, a

hundred years

of cinnamon

air freshener

& taxidermied

animals.

frozen past,

fiberglass

& flayed,

hamstrung. 

dead glass eyes,

paws grasp

meaningless

in hide glue.

skunk smirks in the

kitchen,

the living room

racoon has a

grimace.

confused zebras

stare over billiards

& a thin lipped

lion freezes

the bedroom.

                                                they follow

me, their deaths, their

skin rot. she

preserved her past

in them: lovers, husbands,

friends

& enemies,

                                how lovely

the petrified look.

I recognize their

sour flesh, &

as I turn

                                                to go

                                they devour me

                in my own regrets.

 

***

Lynn Finger’s poetry has appeared in Night Music Journal, Ekphrastic Review, MineralLitMag, Feral, and is forthcoming in Drunk Monkeys, Thimble and 8Poems. Lynn is one of the founding editors of the Harpy Hybrid Review, and also works with a group that mentors writers in prison.