BROWSE Columns
✕
(after To Admit by Saskia Hamilton)
a tropical paradise stares tauntingly back at her
though the corners have begun to peel back, exposing
the facade of comfort as a twinge of metal kisses her calves.
chimeric transfer complete, it is too little too late and
five years later she’ll find herself in this very same room.
the two-dimensional sunset and unnatural foliage will
remember her face but not her name.
–
he had his way with her, as many had before. and
as she slept she dreamed of poppies and pomegranates,
peacefully unaware of any violation until she was
retching between heaves of hot breath and bile.
it is too late to make calculations, there is no use for wild
speculation or imagined parallel universes. she squirrels
a pill between her cheeks that will prove excruciating.
–
her mother had the body of a lion the head of a goat and
the tail of a serpent. she remembers how her mother’s
hysterectomy left her in hysterics – how deeply she felt its
absence, that phantom limb she once homed whole. “Monster!”
she would scream from her shallow sleep. because men
are not mothers, but beasts. when strangers lend their ears she,
like her mother, works it into conversation any chance she gets.
Julianna Salinas is a Texas-born Mexican-American poet and writer based in New York City. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College, where she was the recipient of the Academy of American Poets University and College Poetry Prize, the Louis B. Goodman Creative Writing Award, and the Ottillie Grebanier Drama Award.
