Wildlings, Meet Jessica Drake-Thomas!

October 14, 2019 ehoranpoet

Wildlings, it’s time for a new Featured Artist. Meet Jessica Drake-Thomas!

Jessica Drake-Thomas is a poet, fiction writer and blogger. She holds a B.A. in English from Tulane University, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Emerson College, and a Master’s in Education from the University of Arizona. She’s the author of one chapbook, Possession (dancing girl press) as well as full-length collection of poems, Burials, which is forthcoming from CLASH Books in 2020. She writes book reviews for her blog— This Week, I Read, and she is also a regular contributor at 24Hr Neon Mag, where she writes fictional obituaries. Her poems and short fiction have appeared or are forthcoming at Grimoire Magazine, Ghost City Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Coffin Bell, and Three Drops from A Cauldron, among others.

Today we are introducing Jessica with a new poem.

ATROPOS

You must first learn
there is no beginning, no end.
The language, told by knots
in wool yarn.

If only reading were simple,
a pendulum poised above a map,
the fall of bones, leaves—

Petals, opening to reveal, in time—
a fully blown rose.

You must learn how
to proceed by touch—
how the yarn is rough against
the pads of your fingers.

Feel, the thick and thin. Read:
hand closed to hide the scar,
of an oath kept, and
never revealed.

A chest rising and falling
beneath pressed sheets.
Slowly, now.
Turn the strands to feel
a different angle—

find more knots, old patterns.
Questions, no answers.

Blind One,
how does it feel
to be immortal? To have power,

but no agency?
There’s something beautiful
about attending the mortal end.

Pull out your silver scissors,
make the final cut,
listen: the death rattle.

Next post ⟹