"Cemetery Ave" and more work by Denny McDermott
Cemetery Ave
Does a candle still burn when the house is ablaze?
Devil horns disguised as antlers
Deer, oh dear, did you hear?
The stairway to heaven is cracked
A sinners walk that sounded like you
Danced on the steps.
You held tombstones like commandments
Ignoring one
Cursing two
Bleeding three
Disappointing four and
I washed my hands
In holy basin as you
Carved out five.
You shrugged
Clutching your necklace
Fingers twitching as guilt burned your skin
I turned my cheek
Waiting for heat to cup my face
Is it a sin to let it scorch
My God-fearing form, Dearly Departed?
Or is it a prayer answered
Fire fingers
Digging past holy body
To lap up the marrow?
But to flood a graveyard
With inquisitive drool
Would only wash away the bones
And as I drown
In your false-prophet
The souls still cling
To their concrete names.
I hear their chants
Warning tomes and waning tides
Keep your cross to the sky and pray
The devil doesn’t lie in your bed
But I bang three times on my bible
And intertwine your hand in mine
Letting the crimson seep through the blankets
Inferno kissing our toes and
Dragging us into hellfire worship.
We’re on the same page of death, dear Devil.
Balancing on corner of oblivion and void
Swallowing pyre man’s flames
My funeral flower being gives you warning
Of the weeping willow’s staining tears
And your undertaker heart
Placing my embers, glass kept
Into the flood
I miss the water
But your firestorm hands
Provide warmth.
Does a candle still burn when the house is ablaze?
Beehives and Better Off Deads
He’s better off dead, dear.
Stinger lips
tell sweetpea sweetheart
a tale of sinless sacrifice.
Dread tastes of bitter tea and
tangled rosaries
she snaps the top
that chokes her throat
and spits
dried lavender.
Hivemind encrusted with cobwebs
will still ring
phantom buzzing of
pollen-lush passion
and wisps of his cologne will carry
on ripped out wings
He’s better off dead, dear.
The delusional bee speaks to herself.
Better off damned.
Better off deprived.
And she clutches her honey-stuck cross
Better off. Better off. Better off.
Denny McDermott (she/her) is a Connecticut-based writer. A 3-time Yale Writer’s Workshop alumni, she’s been writing for over a decade. Along with poetry, she is working on her mystery/crime thriller trilogy. You can find her at @alaskawanderlust on Instagram, where she frequently posts her other love, cosplay.