Narcan City, VT

1.

School Street is now known as Narcan Road.
All the town’s twenty-somethings
have disappeared over there—

they pass out while walking.
Face first sidewalk burn,
nodded and frothing—

needle still in the bloodroot.
Why are their shirts always raised,
exposing abdomen flesh

in unflattering ways,
ankles twisted around
in unnatural positions.

2.

Look closely, under-eye concealers
don’t hide the black quarter moons
that make their bottom lids look swollen—
they can’t photograph like us.

Every holiday Facebook photo
has at least one whose pooled moons
tell us, this family,
chases death.

In the morning the children are told
what they lost. At night the children
ask if they can make a deal with Santa.

There’s a whole town out here
where all the spoons are missing.

3.

Heaven could be real. Where good selfless people go
to have painless picnics with other dead loved ones.
Angel wings shimmering in a disease-less garden,
gold-gated. Lions lick the heads of lambs in peaceful
greeting—God smiles.

Hell could be real. Where bad selfish people go
to be punished in a place of sorrow and torment—
tongues scorched with 1000 lies, flames licking
their lips—Heaven visible across the way—
God smiles.

Now I hear Opiate Angels could be real.
Pinhole pupils and dark crescent lids,
pocked skin—grey. Deep reds from elbow
to neck. Weightless and skeletal, flying high.
Thin leather dragon wings clearing the clouds,
an army of addict angles looking over
the orphans in shifts. Doing what they couldn’t
in the flesh.

By Maranda Greenwood

Biography:

Maranda Greenwood is a Vermont poet, she holds an MFA in Poetry from Arcadia University. Her work can be found in Sundog Lit, Eunoia Review, Crab Fat Magazine and other journals. In her free time she coaches field hockey and collects Zoltar tickets.