Heidi Seaborn

After Life, the Carnival Begins

Vous êtes seule? In this forgotten light,
I am radiant. Lips a breath apart, a glint of teeth.

Broaches of bones and whorled skulls.
Strains of the Dance Macabre and I lift

my skirt, extend my hand. A shadow.
Bats. The cavern wall flickers.

It is my birthday and I wear red.
Slit up the thigh. It is all wrong—the cut,

the dress—a hot house strawberry, plumped.
Someone has nodded off in the corner—

the lacunae before the catacombs splinter
into fingers holding those once loved, fucked.

A girl walks by in a puffy pink coat.
Come spring, I’ll pretend I never came here,

I’ll ride the Ferris wheel above cotton candy trees.
If you want to get off, raise your hand.

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Heidi Seaborn is Executive Editor of The Adroit Journal and author of [PANK] Book Award winner An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe (2021), Give a Girl Chaos (2019) and the 2020 Comstock Prize Chapbook, Bite Marks. Recent work in American Poetry Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, Copper Nickel, The Cortland Review, The Greensboro Review, The Missouri Review, The Slowdown with Tracy K. Smith, Tinderbox and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Poetry from NYU. www.heidiseabornpoet.com