by Amanda McLeod
Five for
five months since you killed yourself
my body-clock does its dirty work
five magpies form
a door in the sky
their invitation
to die
woke at five / soaked / remembered the date
anniversaries / the dread of eleven
remembrance gutted my chest / failed
to follow you / into the hollow / I sprawled
gum-stuck to mattress / beached-perca limp
flickering tapes rolled on cue
what he said / what she said / what you said
what you did / what I should have done
five isn’t everyone’s heaven
declared my neighbor, cruising his golf cart
hissing scripture
it’s unnatural / a sin
against god
she’s so selfish / she didn’t take her meds
it’s never that bad / why didn’t she pray to God
until I finally said enough
you don’t even know her
five magpies form a door in the sky
their invitation to die
there’s a flaw
in people / they worship
shame and blame
you knew shame like the skin
of your cheek
shame for the kiss / shame for the sickness
shame for the look / and imagined sin
shame shame shame for the skin
shame with the belt / shame for the pleasure
shame for the fat and shame for the thin
shame for the love / shame for the art
shame for the illness / shame for the birth
shame for the sex and shame for the flesh
shame shame
shame with the fist
shame for the joy and shame for the tears
shame for the patient
shame for his death / shame for your own breath
five magpies form a door in the sky
their invitation
to die
there are no assholes in heaven
the guy in the golf cart is mine Max
Find work by Koss in Hobart, Cincinnati Review, Spillway, Diode Poetry, Rogue Agent, Five Points, Spoon River, Chiron, Lumiere Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, and many others. They also have work in Best Small Fictions 2020 and work forthcoming in Kissing Dynamite’s Punk Anthology. Find Koss on Twitter @Koss51209969 or at http://koss-works.com.
Amanda McLeod is an Australian creative with a passion for quiet wild places. She loves to take her work outside and can often be found writing or painting in the trees. You can read her work in many places, most recently The Daily Drunk Mag and Failed Haiku. Catch her on Twitter and Instagram @AmandaMWrites or via her website AmandaMcLeodWrites.com