WHEN SHE SAW WHAT SHE HAD DONE is a series of narrative poems detailing Lizzie Borden’s life, her spiral into madness, the murder of her father and stepmother, and her life after the murders. In a collection of thirty-five poems, subtitled THE BALLAD OF LIZZIE BORDEN, Nicole Mello cleverly and vividly tells the story of a young woman whose life falls apart around her head and whose idea of a deep, true love is a…
sweet songbird on earth, lyre in hand— put your faith in the gods, boy, you are beautiful and beloved to them and they would not see your music end. play your mourning song for the world, let humans weep and trees splinter in your wake, as you leave your sun-father behind to visit uncle and aunt in burning shadow. trust in your wife, child, for she loves you, snake-bite, shade-step, and all, you were happy…
hey, baby, put your hand in mine; we used to be such scared children, but here we are together, we’ve made it, look how we’ve grown. i will keep you safe here, no matter the cost, be it my life; you are my life, after all this, here, at the end of the world. you smell so sweet, even now, roses and frost underneath smoke and blood, and i could spend hours holding you while…
sit here on the porch with me. darling, i have something to tell you. the stars are brighter than ever before. i think tonight is an unusual night. what makes it unusual? the light in your eyes is brighter than all stars. you are like a moon. the moon’s light is a reflection of the sun. then you are a sun, and i am a moon. that’s never been true. sit, sit here. i’m feeling…
the sweet fields and highway drives through long meadows and middle prairies, crackling radio and chorus of crickets, blazing sun and blast of wind through open windows. east coast becomes midwest becomes olympia, washington forest and south to california orange groves, desert, canyons, rivers, plantations, deep into the bayou, rural and filled with light. in the protected lands, there are stars, galaxies, currents of cosmic color, lying on your back in the dirt in a…
here, come here, sit beside me, i have so much to tell you, so much i have seen that i want you to have seen at my side. here, take it, take my hand, tell me what you’ve seen and heard, remind me what our names are and don’t let the others know. here, say it, say everything now, everything you’ve kept inside, words we never thought to say or thought were better left unsaid.…
tell me some thing you know. what? anything. anything at all. our average life expectancy is fifty-eight years. mine isn’t. don’t. well, it isn’t. you can have my extras; i’ll live twenty-five years, and you’ll live to be ninety-five. you mean ninety-one. i won’t regardless. why? either we’re both ninety-one, or neither of us is. i can’t imagine a “neither.” perfect. then we’ll both live forever. take your medicine. what for? because you have sixty-eight…
hey there, pretty face. i haven’t seen you in a couple years, have i? not since i put you under. i dug into the dirt for you. i used my nails, my clawing hands, because i couldn’t bear the thought of not being the last to see your face. pictures speak a thousand words. your laugh fires a thousand synapses; looking down at you once more, like this, i can almost hear it again. i…
she sits in sunshine, resplendent, her garden flowering around her, a living golden-haired persephone, eye of her sweet flora hurricane. she is a warm, kind bitch, who strokes ivy leaves with the same hands that can so easily curl into split-knuckled fists. darling, darling of spring and summer, bringer still of dead winter and dying fall, touch hearts like you touch your plants and bring these rotted pulses back to life. her wife stands in…
stars, streak, hurtle past, i’m going home, at sweet long last— i’ve miles to go before i sleep, centuries long and oceans deep— i’m coming to the promised land, swift and hard and back of hand— clear the path for my way home, a landing site, no more i roam— one track mind, now, burning up, see every ill-fated crisp buttercup— through the atmosphere, and closer now, but i won’t be stopping anyhow— cleanse the…