wildscape. literary journal

Latter-day Goth
by Edie Meade

Rainbow race-around vape shop window, 
I love you red velvet cake of mashed 

lanternfly wings. I’m sorry. Pain-scale 
smileys laugh until they cry, plot lost 

forever to fever. Is love ever declared 
too late? I have so many questions. Bedridden 

pages of the gothic are still my favorite, 
consumptive damsel with red rose kisses 

I thought I wanted to be, because beauty is 
pain is beauty. In the balm of night, 

two synthetic rhythms sync and un- 
link at a braid’s end where hairs feather

frizz halo. Playground hair clasps. Hello 
Kitty, our lady of the tire-shred mulch.

//

I’m on the outside now, witnessing
the bounce house struggle, derecho 

lifting its cards. Hit me. Corndog hunger 
rumble. Electrical fire. My memory 

mingling fair night pheromones 
with mud-hut manure. The ruminant 

animal of the magic hour, falling 
in love with light on the calico port, 

heavy petting between intermodal 
shipping containers stacked 

high orange on blue, a wash 
holding shape on the line.

I’ll cover for you.
Shadow rabbits bolt.

//

Epilogue, the yawning awe of a brownout, 
the city’s ears popped in the plunge 

to canyon-drop silence. Cardinal 
chitter in the gap. Nosebleed 

in the red propeller plane, stranger’s meet-cute 
tissue packet offering, trembling courage. 

Bubblegum, turquoise, three specks of glitter 
on hard-fought nails, remains of the archaic, 

mosaic chips after the volcano. I witness 
the world drop through my reflection.

Beyond evacuation, kudzu monks lead 
their sycamore elephants on to the river.

The forest makes like a tree. I know. 
YOLO, over. Still, I’m sorry to leave.

about the author // Edie Meade