As Blanche DuBois
We were sugar-water girls once;
dripping wrists, open throats,
always waiting for the wingbeat.
Desire had a mouth.
We fed it.
Little fires kept
in borrowed rooms,
bare bulbs dressed in silk.
Quick, soften the glow.
We know the magnet trick,
how opposites hover, just shy
of ruin.
The living room is a trap,
a glasshouse pulsing
with the bass of fat fists.
But what no one says
is that the split is convincing.
I made another magnet.
I tore clean through.
Red in the mirror,
milk on the wound.
We flinch
at our reflection,
slip into costumes
that no longer zip.
Isn’t the pull
worth the scorch?
Naomi Wilson is a poet and photographer based in San Marcos, Texas. Her work explores memory and ancestry, often through persona and literary figures. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University, where she teaches writing.