in the fever we call living

“The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” EAP

we flapped our arms like dark birds lighted on the Pallas /
I was cousined

to the likeness of / my Mother and Lenore / my poor soul / the guilty
narrator / self-
sabotaging

in rehearsed
bereavement / in bitter quarrels with / the ill
angels / feasting on the drop of blood I carried
to the table

when the wind blew out of a cloud / when the wind
haunted trees
I wandered in her cemeteries / sick or drunk / or both /

consumed with death / electing
oblivion, in another man’s soiled clothes

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Featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, Kathleen Hellen’s work has been nominated multiple times for Best of the Net and the Pushcart. She is the recipient of the James Still Award, the Thomas Merton prize for Poetry of the Sacred, and poetry prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review. Hellen is the author of three full-length poetry collections, including Meet Me at the Bottom, The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin, and Umberto’s Night, which won the poetry prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and two chapbooks.