Two Pieces

Jump to: Lot’s Wife in the Age of the Messiah (33) ・ Appalachian Gothic (Death Comes for Me)

Lot's Wife in the Age of the Messiah (33)

Artist’s Statement: Every year on my birthday, I write a poem about Lot’s Wife as a way of looking back at / honoring the past year.

you can’t outrun being
a named thing that old semiotic ache
I sure hate to be
bad news comma the bearer of there was
a moment when it all
burned down around her she
thought it was just god handing
her another blanket was there
a way to guarantee your
ashes do not trouble the earth there was
swear on all there is this is all there is where
on all this is there is all this i swear

Appalachian Gothic (Death Comes for Me)

but i can't make her stay
how many times i dip my head
like cattle to the sweet sulk of her
my hands, i am smearing her
face so as not to be recognized
who has not tasted her. and i
the stands like a clumsy streaker
ties to the home team and no
visiting somewhere new,
sliding through the banner
easily as it slid me the second smile
thin in the unease of drums. is this
a half-hearted twirl of my fingers on
someone's stiffness, pleading up at me
theirs. death comes and then she goes,
i can't stop her, her thigh on my thigh,
like a seam fire in my ear: be quiet,
is outside the door, pink pools of lifedrink
me, as if their fate is never to dry, as if
that have found me have found me

no matter
low, lowing
pulp across
on my
by anyone
reel through
with no
intention of
the knife
just as
i'm wearing
victory? or
someone else's
like i'm
comes again,
her breath
your son
sluicing through
the hands
by mistake

Amelia K. lives in Georgia (the state, not the country). She won Best of the Net (Nonfiction, 2024) and her chapbook Amouroboros (KERNPUNKT, 2024) was longlisted for The Kari Flickinger Memorial Prize. Her website is bio.site/ameliak.