property tax

welcome to the aftershock
of possession. mirror, smoky
quartz, self-interviews.
swallowing fat pills down
narrow airways. finding
wildflowers in the smog,
you are encased in neon
arcade glow, murmuring
escape plans. molding
yourself into illustrations.
the air gets heavier. this
is the lure of tiny beginnings.
of vetiver, cedarwood. of
naked ticking. of
cuticle blooms. of
forearms for rulers, slivers
for teeth calcified queues,
costuming telescopic
intricacies as mouthfuls
of summertime fruit.

Savannah Slone is a writer, editor, and English professor who currently dwells in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has appeared in Split Lip Magazine, Paper Darts, Glass, FIVE:2:ONE, Hobart Pulp, and elsewhere. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Homology Lit, as well as the author of An Exhalation of Dead Things (CLASH Books, 2021), Hearing the Underwater (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and This Body is My Own (Ghost City Press, 2019). You can read more of her work at www.savannahslonewriter.com.