“Opheliac” by Emma Sloan
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Opheliac” by Emma Sloan.
Opheliac
By Emma Sloan
In Steubenville,
Ophelia claws her way up
through the duckweed again.
Look at her just standing there,
John says. Eric tosses
a football into the air and laughs,
tight-lipped,
the beehive of last weekend
rattling loose behind his molars.
Yesterday,
when Eric went to the river
to choke on the word Sorry
โtil his tongue went soft,
she sank back into the deep blue
until there was only the mirror
of her dead-deer eyes.
Now, the cheerleaders are filing out
in rows of three. The firelight slides
a palm up the back of their skirts,
the flames red as Opheliaโs mouth
gaping, red as her dress hunched
on Ericโs basement floor.
There are better things to look at,
he says.
Copyright ยฉ Emma Sloan
Previously published by in Opheliac (Black Lawrence Press, 2024).
Emma Sloan is a poet, short fiction author, and journalist with works published across 300+ international digital and print publications. She is the author of Foxglove (Chapter House, 2022) and Opheliac (The Black Lawrence Press, 2024).
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