Two Poems

Black Sugar


My mottled pink skin

Cracks

Like black sugar

Under my fingernails

Which are, like me, ugly

And, unlike me, not yet useless

Blood splits

Like custard

Into its constituent parts

That which gives life

That which infects

That which dries into air

My sticky fingers

Hold a wedge of apple

Its center cut into angles

Like a gemstone

Only worthless

Only mine

Things are bad

When you’re just waiting

For life

To be more

Fun






Victim


I saw a woman

in a clean white dress

digging through the dumpster

behind a diner off the highway

next to the motel I was staying at

in Indianapolis. Her hair was blonde.

I was sitting on the curb, watching

two cats who also were waiting

at the dumpster, and smoking

a cigarette, and saying nothing

to the woman, and gesturing

at the cats to come closer to me,

which they did not, and in fact

they went further and further away

from me as my desire for them

to come closer intensified.

The woman pretended

I wasn’t there, or maybe

I really wasn’t, to her. Well,

she could say the same for me,

that much is true: I pretended

she wasn’t there, or maybe

she really wasn’t. I didn’t see her

take anything from the dumpster.

She didn’t seem as though she was

in need of anything in particular.

If anything, I’d say her facial expression

betrayed a kind of boredom.

What I mean to say is, I don’t think

she was a victim of anything,

which is to say, anyone. But

even if she was, I don’t think

I’d be able to see her that way, I mean,

as a victim. What I mean to say

is that sympathy,

it doesn’t come easy to me.

The truth is that

I’m the victim in my fantasies,

I’m the victim of my fantasies.

_____
Francesca Kritikos lives in Chicago. She is the editor-in-chief of SARKA. Her latest book, The season of lilacs is monstrous, is now available from Blush Lit.