November in the Soul

Bottle-shaped hole—the craving
for the craving lingers, though the craving
is gone.

I bind myself with pins & masking tape
& thimblefuls of tapeworms. Mother knits
beside the bridal pool—
her fingers undulate, green & wan.

She looks like fate to me.

I run, breaking my crown on the fireplace.
Masked doctors shriek & trill, stitching the gash over my eye
with catgut, with lies of baleen & yarn.

Finned monsters writhe below the floor.

My hiemal estate—
a puddle & a dead leaf.

Cats yowl into wells, brewing new oceans underground.
The Mayflower Corps dogs the port—
I’m a tear & the sea is my home, I splutter,
but they bark in my ear, YOU’RE A CAT.
SAY IT!

Glassed eyes bob between the rocks. Walls
shimmer, papered with sunfish, with pancaked
stardust. Murmuring mantic, we confront the sun—
some float wavewards through the sewer bars,
some tumble, pine-pierced, on the katabatic.

Above us, the Grey Lady & the indifferent
Drone.

By Amee Nassrene Broumand

Biography:

Amee Nassrene Broumand is an Iranian-American poet. She has a B.A. in Philosophy & English from Boise State University, where she tutored logic for six semesters, graduated summa cum laude, & was named a Top Ten Scholar. Nominated for a Pushcart by Sundog Lit, she also has poems in Word Riot, A-Minor Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, Windfall, & elsewhere. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon & blogs for Burning House Press (UK).