stark raving
and bat shit smeared
I care nothing for anything
that does not rejoice
in my sister’s curves

that does not dissolve
in the plaited luxury
of her voice

that refuses to surrender
to a body of knowledge
more profound
than Challenger Deep

“she must be mad”
only scratches the surface
of 30 days of bleeding
of 15 years of conceding
of 45 years of screaming
for the dying cacophony
smothered in unrelenting
testosterone leaded folds

I no longer know
when anger and insanity
fused and usurped my blood
but certainty foretells
this red bolt lightning will repeat
with rejoined acuity
singing for the anglerfish
weeping ink in the stalls
equanimously sure
I am not mad
at all

Tamara Fricke is the 2010 co-winner of the Gertrude Claytor Award of the Academy of American Poets and is previously published by The Lyon Review, Meat for Tea, Attack Bear Press Poetry Vending Machine, Whisper and the Roar, We Will Not Be Silenced, and has been included in a number of compilations.  Her poetry chapbook Our Requiem was released in 2014.  She lives in Springfield, MA, with an ungrateful cat, where she writes grants professionally.