Anastasia Jill (Anna Keeler) is a queer poet and fiction writer living in the southern United States. She is a current editor for the Smaeralit Anthology. Her work has been published or is upcoming with Poets.org, Cleaver Magazine, FIVE:2:ONE, Ambit Magazine, Drunk Monkeys, Hawai’i Pacific Review, The Laurel Review: Fearsome Critters, and more.

Flower&Death

The best way to use him
Is in a pentagram of gold,
Aura rose, and red
Triangles with a menacing
Third eye.

Such a flirt in toxic
Petals—the lover’s harness
Chlorophyll

And biology in hands so
Inexorably thrown by
Lung gasps.

What are ribs, but roots,
The soul, its hands.
Spinal columns are just
Pulpo for abduction.

We get married to the ground
And live with power shutting down.
We melt the gold and eat the eye
For utility. Sunlight ain’t cheap.