Unrest
A woman puzzles over a hillside until even a wood poppy begins to resemble her fundamental helplessness. She and her little sister scramble across black rocks; beneath them is flowing lava. The sister slips and her thigh is seared to the bone.
A woman unlatches a wooden box. Inside live weasels have been stacked on top of one another like sheets of nori. In her hands they become furry snakes. She is bitten on the ankle and wrist.
A woman wakes hissing, ready to chew out of any container arrogant enough to hold her. Above the window a lone wasp dangles his legs in the air.
Meryl DePasquale lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Dream of a Perfect Interface (Dancing Girl Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Handsome Journal, Interim Magazine, Konundrum Engine Literary Review, Paper Darts and The Offending Adam. Meryl teaches at St Catherine University and is a member of the artist cooperative at Minnesota Center for Book Arts. In collaboration with Shawn Hebrank, she makes letterpress broadsides, mail art, and artist books under the name Four-Letter Press.