by Kailey Tedesco
mud in the form of a wound is kissed
by a carnation on our footpath,
each petal an inscription of fracture
or bleed—
all of this a last prayer recited in perfect unison
with a doppelgänger of god’s.
cease your trust in the muntin windows,
each of them mourning their city,
now in wax. someone once warned us
a devil could be a soul
chicken-skinned in candlesticks, a mold
to be filled with folklore,
immaculate. a devil might also be the ghost
tour’s church basement, wood-spindled
with poppet prick & cobwebs & eye rubs
& vhs tapes fast forwarding
oyer & terminer, ready now to receive
a divination of glitch. the non-
witches record their heartbeats
in the wax of their bobbsey
& make a ribbon of yellow-brick
naming their dead. it is true,
after all, what they say about blood
& the way that we drink it—
so many of us came born with it
already at the back of our throat.