Poem: OGYIAN FRUITS
Blush peony lips pull starving blood vessels into blue-violet birthmarks;
Silent scream, mouthful of honeycomb and grapes, drips down brick walls.
Hedone’s heat rushes from lotus leaves, oxytocin tears into blood valves;
Syringe of sweetest novocaine, grip on wrist slackens hence her chest swells.
Breath washed in metal, glistening locks stick to throbbing bodies – stand,
Aeneas, wrapped in yard of mulberry cloth, cup of wine and heart in hand.
Elissa memorizes Orion shooting Virgo, swirls of stars on shoulders tanned,
Maps a life with Lucina and Pomona – Queen to the father of Roman land.
Serpents of steam slither from whence our hero purifies his body of love:
Fair maiden confesses to her paramour’s shield; search for symbols of hope.
Dutiful priestess of Eros, young daughter of Peitho won’t surrender to fate,
No order amidst the lungs avows sowing seeds would be a fatal mistake.
Tangled in fabrics sopping with blood, sobbing, she flees into the dawn;
Shaking fingers plug bits of tissue into the cavern of cracked rib and skin.
Naiad erupts beneath rosy-fingered skies, the sun like halo of rising sin;
How she longs to be Helen in pearls and lace, yet runs when near the crown.
Caitlin Joy is a film, music, fashion, and culture journalist, poet, fiction writer, visual artist, stylist, creative director, and singer. She is working on her Honors Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Cinema Studies and Women and Gender Studies and a minor in Creative Expression and Society at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada. She has a background in rock music, travel, and fashion. She is publishing her first poetry book, pixie, and is working on her second, - Sincerely, Caitlin, and third poetry books.