Shanna Compton
Rethinking Monster Island
But what will we do if affection
is discovered to be an untethered substance,
attaching at no point to thing
or person,
a gauze or aura
or something we inhabit
like a hoodie from H&M, hot yellow
and scored at a deep discount?
Tomorrow we may learn
our varicolored states are nothing more
than commercials plotted to induce
our happiness, tinged with shame
for the sweetness in that contrast.
In acid green both cheery
and a bit nauseating, alternating
with intrepid stripes, here are my sullied edges,
here I am being a woman
amidst all this news.
I’m putting my hair up because I’m sick of this.
Lend me whatever you have left
that fits OK and is not too worn out?
Can you spare a claw, a tail, a fresh set
of rechargeable, satin-lined, swiveling ears?
Nobody offered me shots to sign this petition.
Rethinking Monster Island
But what will we do if affection
is discovered to be an untethered substance,
attaching at no point to thing
or person,
a gauze or aura
or something we inhabit
like a hoodie from H&M, hot yellow
and scored at a deep discount?
Tomorrow we may learn
our varicolored states are nothing more
than commercials plotted to induce
our happiness, tinged with shame
for the sweetness in that contrast.
In acid green both cheery
and a bit nauseating, alternating
with intrepid stripes, here are my sullied edges,
here I am being a woman
amidst all this news.
I’m putting my hair up because I’m sick of this.
Lend me whatever you have left
that fits OK and is not too worn out?
Can you spare a claw, a tail, a fresh set
of rechargeable, satin-lined, swiveling ears?
Nobody offered me shots to sign this petition.
Shanna Compton’s books include Brink (2013), For Girls & Others (2007), Down Spooky (2005), Gamers (2004), and several chapbooks. A book-length speculative poem called The Seam is forthcoming next year. Poems have recently appeared in Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Horse Less Review, Barrelhouse, and the Poem-A-Day/Poem Flow feature by the Academy of American Poets.
