Maggie Ginestra / Deep in the Safe House

  About the Author: Maggie Ginestra has previously had poems published in Cairn: and The Sow's Ear Poetry Review. The Stalactites under Mt. Soofreemio In a dream I am slim again in one of Henry Darger’s caves, my breasts—skinned butters—having slipped off and blown home. I have loins of air with fragile hair, just a poof of banana gnats. I’m beautiful as dirt freshly shat by worms—such a black could be anything tweaked—a green, a blue, a brown? I’m indecipherable as the two mirrors who stare each other to dust. Along the frayed underbelly of earth, my bird-cries gather in puddles. My gummy gape, little oval hunger, wobbles ladderless beneath the rocky teats. I smell a strange lava—melted spatula, wet dog—and I run, not caring as the caves change their colors. I run, leaving a dead skin trail of ash and I dream I am a rabbit but I’m not.    *