No one thought she’d go the way she did, mired
in car smoke, no death note. She lived a bad
life, died a good death—as decently sad
an end as any.
I stretch my leg skyward
with my head to the dirt. Listen, I’m wired—
a cup phone to hell. Loose string runs bone-clad
through me. Press your ear to the arch and pad
of my foot.
Hear her voice, the snap of fire.
Divine the sounds thrumming thick through my marrow—
the wails and moans, those melancholy tones
and above it all, her sinister whisper:
The crust between us is ever so narrow,
it’s thinning every day. She’s hurling stones
at hell’s ceiling. Despite it all, I miss her.
Madison Rahner is a poet living in Conway, South Carolina, where she graduated from Coastal Carolina University’s MA in Writing. She has poetry published in The Threepenny Review, The Fiddlehead, and The Normal School among others. When she’s not writing, she’s mostly likely tending her flock of backyard chickens.
