CW: animal death, blood, death.
Fairy tales approach revenge in such interesting ways—there is often a sense of catharsis and ordering the universe in these acts, especially since they tend to appear at the story’s conclusion. I wanted to write a horror poem with a sense of ambiguity about what happened so that the focus becomes the process of self-creation through revenge, to look at the healing process of that transformation and the horror and satisfaction of a necessary rebirth.
When she wakes,
a fawn, blue in the early hour,
staggers into a copse
and a rabbit skull
wapoqteg whitened by the sun
sinks into the ground.
Sangewowo’gwet
she talks softly
to the holy green fluorescence
of grass that stretches tubers,
drinking sun, waiting
to devour.
Sucking blood from fresh
wounding, she tears apart
a floral veil
stripping petal from mesh
to stent her waqantal bones, to
wrap her ulmaita’suaqann sorrows
into poisonous blossoms.
When she finds him again
her swollen eyes watch
his mouth twist rose-red
into last purple breath.
She rises, crown crooked,
a swan diving
into cold black water.
