the sisters i’m thinking of light candles
on their molars – waxy moonlight,
artificial. we have taught them to
hold the hands
of strangers at a young age. they have learned
to pull the bones of hand from the skin
of hand making empty palms
as offerings.
the tin bowl is kept
between floorboards, full
of sticky dimes, full of paper cranes – full. these girls
talk of death like they know it,
like they’ve always been full of it. deer
mice flee from beneath
their fingernails making mother
beat their wrists
like rugs, scrubbing skin hot & then
gone. these girls have soap
in their mouths. it’s stolen
from an inn, tastes
yellow, but not lemon. someone
sleeps on their carpet at night. they’ve licked
it cat-dry. these girls use eye-
lashes to auger, nose to floor,
sipping up maple.
Kailey Tedesco is the author of She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing) and These Ghosts of Mine, Siamese (Dancing Girl Press). She is the editor-in-chief of Rag Queen Periodical and an associate editor for Luna Luna Magazine. Her manuscript Lizzie, Speak recently won White Stag Publishing's full-length poetry contest, and it will be published in early 2019. You can find her work featured or forthcoming in Prelude, New South, Sugar House Review, Phoebe Journal, Muse/A Journal, Bone Bouquet Journal, and more. For further information, please visit kaileytedesco.com or follow @kaileytedesco.