About the column:

Poems of our Climate is a weekly poetry column run by Oliver Egger ’23. Oliver Egger also runs the literary magazine group Route 9 that is currently accepting submissions for its poetry zine, The Lavender. If you would like to submit poetry to The Lavender go to tinyurl.com/wespoetry.  Submissions end for the first issue on the 12th. If you are interested in having your poem featured in this column please email your work directly to oegger@wesleyan.edu.

allecto, queen of the furies

Poem Originally Featured in Permafrost Magazine

by Casey Epstein-Gross, ’25

 

i want to make myself wild again       let foam

drip from my mouth      run rabid round street corners

a woman possessed has the prettiest eyes or so they say

i can’t much remember how mine looked       but i 

imagine it was a green watery type of piercing

 

it’s been so long since i last bathed        in a college 

fountain      drank silky pennies off the floor        swallowed 

rusty chlorine by the gallon     oh how i relished the taste!

but now my fingers skim soft wood at café tables      now i 

never drink hot coffee without the use of a spoon       

 

sedation is the most agreeable form of sedition       hold my

mouth open with a chopstick like old times       stick that needle 

in my gums     you always thought it was strange how i licked 

my lips afterwards       i always thought it was strange how much 

chemical sleep tasted       of sugarcane and sweet lemon

 

Bio of Poet:

Casey Epstein-Gross is from Tallahasse, Florida, which she complains about frequently. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Sugar House Review, Soundings East, Thin Air Magazine, and Permafrost Magazine, and she’s currently the Assistant Poetry Editor of Wesleyan’s literary journal Route 9. She likes Baked Lays and National Treasure (2004), and is deathly afraid of the passage of time and stickers.