Those who fled told of breath –
whiskey, tobacco, onions, garlic.

No whiff of mint or Arm & Hammer,
just a wicked halitosis. The blood

of those who failed to leave cried
out from the ground ‘til the bones

exhumed from shallow pits were
zipped in bags in white gazebos.

Crimes unconfessed, the couple
unshriven, they begged for burial

over cremation. Souls may twist
on a spit, or writhe in a lake of fire,

but the pair’s remains will lie still,
tossed without care to decompose

in a narrow plot, his coccyx next
to her pubic bone, dead-spooning.

Sharon Larkin’s poems have appeared in anthologies (Cinnamon Press, Eyewear Publishing, Indigo Dreams Publications), in magazines (Prole, Obsessed with Pipework, Here Comes Everyone) and online (Ink, Sweat and Tears, Clear Poetry, The Stare’s Nest).  She regularly performs in Gloucestershire, is Chair of Cheltenham’s Arts Council and Poetry Society and has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing.  Website: here.

That pupil has seen things
too dark for daytime company.
It pierces social skin,
pinpoints indiscretions
long covered over,
targets acts you chose to hide
beneath layers of pitch.

Deeds at night
find affinity in the depths
of the dilating dot. Do not let
the bluish glow fool you.
It is trompe l’oeil.
There is no enlightenment
in the heart-shaped face.

There, loveless core meets beak,
poised to incise and slice.
That face has an eye

for an eye.

Sharon Larkin’s poems have appeared in anthologies (Cinnamon Press, Eyewear Publishing, Indigo Dreams Publications), in magazines (Prole, Obsessed with Pipework, Here Comes Everyone) and online (Ink, Sweat and Tears, Clear Poetry, The Stare’s Nest).  She regularly performs in Gloucestershire, is Chair of Cheltenham’s Arts Council and Poetry Society and has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing.  Website: here