Sara J. Tantlinger

DANGEROUS HONESTIES

I close my eyes
and HAZARD flashes
red against the darkness

summer heat boils
thoughts to gurgling
mucus, but I can’t regret
the contrast
of his blood-spattered
silence against emerald
blades
of whispering grass

the skull bones stare
back at me, bleached
and accusing

but HAZARD
I think I hear
the sirens

and HAZARD
his skin was so
dangerous

the way it sang lullabies
lured me closer
so I am faulted,
but will they see
the beauty, the art

the HAZARD
of his pelt
hanging from the laundry line
baking in the sun
and how the butterflies
have landed
on a filleted chunk
of thigh

I cocooned
myself
in a coat
of his flesh
but HAZARD
the sirens approach
and I have no more knives

because I miss his voice
and how he instructed me
to destroy the raging angels
inside my confused eyes

I thought he was false,
but boys with blue lips
tell no lies


Sara reads "Dangerous Honesties":



Subscribe to Channel Five-Two for first view of new videos.


Sara confesses: "'Dangerous Honesties' was inspired by the theme challenge to combine summer and crime. I couldn’t get the image of someone’s skin hanging from a laundry line and dancing in the breeze out of my head, so I played with that idea and the poem took off."

SARA TANTLINGER is currently pursuing her MFA through Seton Hill’s Writing Popular Fiction program. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Literary Hatchet, Liquid Imagination, Inklight, The Five-Two, HWA Poetry Showcase Volume II, Eye Contact, and the 2014 SFPA Halloween Poetry Reading. Find her on Twitter at @SaraJane524