- Flux Magazine
"The Queen, Abyss" by Amanda Pape
To know her body is to know
Death,
and where his lithe hands may
wander
But he speaks in a language
that is understood
Flowers withering into Earth’s palms,
the erotic rhythms of
ripening and decay,
the tender thrusts of the seasons
A frost encroaches upon bud and stem
Speaking in
bittersweet dialects
Tart remarks and honeyed tongues
Swallowed succulent seeds of three
That bore a fruit of
greed, lust, wrath
Until her bushel of roses
became a bramble of thorns
He bestowed her crude name,
taught the poetry of destruction
But she is nature’s voracious mouth.
a womb of carnage
where chaos waits
To hold him under
pomegranate persuasion
The amalgamation
of desolation and disorder
her true form
Gentle jade gave way to
carnivorous crimsons
Our marriage bed bloomed
into a garden of petulant poppies
He ambles in archaic affection
Doting upon his derelict bride
who dominates his cold domain
He carved her out with obsidian
But she was already faceted a queen