NATASHA KESSLER-RAINS, "FEARSCAPE" (Issue 16)

FEARSCAPE

If you were my sister, you would be dead.

Your beautiful arms outstretched,
can’t say shit with a hole in your head.

If you were my sister, would you cover up already?
Plum in one hand, vetches at your gender,
a wolf at your neck. Twenty minutes of action:
they said you were asking for it, my sister.

If you were my sister, you would sit in the corner.

Your beautiful face levitating over water—
no longer a body, just a hole in the ocean,
a hole in our human backs spilling out over the floor.

ABOUT THE POET

Natasha Kessler-Rains is the author of Dismantling the Rabbit Altar. Living in Omaha, she teaches writing at area universities and works as a writing consultant for Metro Community College. Natasha also helps facilitate a community workshop called the Seven Doctors Project, a Nebraska Writers Collective program. Natasha spends her free time tying knots and reading books to her daughter.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW

We’ve loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), so now we want an opportunity to better hear our contributors. We will feature an audio recording of a poem from one of our seven issues, read by the poet and updated every couple of weeks. This an open invitation to all contributors from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to hear it.