It Will Be Alive by Laurin DeChae | Really System: Issue Eight

It Will Be Alive

Laurin DeChae

“I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam,
but I am rather the fallen angel,
whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed."
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Communion-tongued serpent up for last call. A soul smoker.
I’m new to the touch, a spitting image, forked and sober-split.

We could lose ourselves at the heart of sacrilege
if we count time together on the leaves of clovers, split.

You’ve branded me with bloodstains and a heart that won’t quit
look at me, all rosy, ripped open. Hold me closer or split.

The universe will be alive and biting, distorting the heavens,
raising hell in the underground seducing angels to float and split.

No absolutes: the word, the word. And here I am,
calling on God: to make me. Make me a solar shaker—split.

Laurin DeChae is a M.F.A. candidate for poetry at the University of New Orleans, where she acts as the associate editor for Bayou Magazine. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Harpur Palate, Cleaver Magazine, burntdistrict, S/WORD, Rose Red Review, and Rust + Moth.

ISSUE EIGHT: Melty Slayers | next poem →