Kristin Garth: Fifty Steps

Fifty Steps

Innocence, you send away, in carriage, 
feathered, by break of day. Two children who
dream a while, in bed clothes none disparage, 
regal, undefiled, but for a prick few
will even feel inside a forearm, dream
surreal incited by a cup of warm pink milk,
another day they sleep in silk. Agleam, 
remove your threadbare clothes, decorate with chill 
callow skin in rose, cheeks to fingertips, 
incarnadine, composed though only dressed
in shadows of blade. Pale penumbra which
some serrated silver makes on naked flesh,
the fifty steps you take towards a kill, 
is naked rage to clothe in blood you spill.

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated poet from Pensacola and a sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked magazines like Five: 2: One, Yes, Glass, Luna Luna, Occulum, Drunk Monkeys, and other places. She is the author of eleven books of poetry including Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Puritan U (Rhythm & Bones Press) and Candy Cigarette Womanchild Noir (The Hedgehog Poetry Press) and the forthcoming Flutter: Southern Gothic Fever Dream (TwistiT Press, 2020) and Dewy Decimals (Arkay Artists, 2020). Follow her on Twitter and her website.