Flossie’s Reply
by Astrid Ho Yan Liu
Golden Shovel after William Carlos Williams
you leave me simpering notes and I
know you must whet the appetite you have.
her juices are not the first you’ve eaten
- or the last, you delight so in the
way we bruise and rot: as plums
bursting with nascent red pulp that
drips amethyst down your chin. were
my dreary small fists in
your marriage bed not enough to satiate? the
creeping fear i’ve crystallized, an icebox-
inevitable fate of this girl and
the next. dearest, tell me. which
patients’ stomach pits at the sight of you
suave and knowing as you are (as you were)
though i plead i know there is probably
no slim chance of saving
a sliver of these slim girls - for
you feast on green naivete as breakfast.
i pray they escape before they learn to Forgive
you. pray they’ll escape before they become me-
i cannot hold you off. as you say, they
were
delicious
so
sweet
and
our cores they grow numb and so
cold