Shanna Germain

IWhen this House Burns

In the heat, everything grows. Flower garden

seeds in time-lapse flames, shoots sprouting beneath

the floor. A bit of bloom, golden red and gorgeous,

azalea or maybe aster. It’s hard to tell

this early in the season, all spreading petals

and no sense of space. The walls are covered

in creepers, climbing charlies, daylilies

turning their faces toward the light.

Stand, caught in the watching, even as beneath

the brown carpet, flame runners send their roots

to bedrooms and baby rooms. You know what must

be done, and yet, there is the winter weighing heavy

on your shoulder, the summer heat flaring in

your  spring-torn lungs. Take the stairs two

at a time, superhuman, nothing like human.

In your daughter’s room, fields of crimson clover

sprout and spread, bleeding hearts bud under sheets

and blankets. Your daughter kneels before fiery

cosmos, the ones that die in transplant, and still

she insists, palms over red and orange petals.

You drop everything, find the spade in your

sleeve, pull your daughter up and out, down

the stairs, until the two of you stand on the lawn,

with bouquets of fire in your fists.

Why I Will Not Get Out of Bed

I will not get out of bed because

right here, right now, I’m dreaming

beneath the covers and the cat

is a woman kissing me, dark and mysterious,

her breath alive with the salty sea.

My husband exhales in time to tides

washing upon the shore in another country,

a country I could sail to if I dove

a little further beneath these white waves

of quilt.

I will not get out of bed because when I do

the pretty woman kissing me becomes

a dingy cat hungry for breakfast, shore lines

turn to snores, and my husband will ask,

“Where’s my work shirt?” before slamming

out the door into the gray drizzle of morning.

The cat claws my eyes, last night’s dinner dishes

caw and squabble in the sink,

the garbage disposal wears itself out

on fish bones and clam shells until it locks solid,

a yawning sinkhole.

But mainly, I will not get out of bed because

once I pull the cat from my eyeballs,

shove a wad of hair down the drain for good measure,

kiss my husband’s wake goodbye,

I will sit down at my desk

and the page will sit before me,

blank as a shore full of last night’s letters,

sand stories already expecting

to be washed away.

Shanna Germain is a poet by nature, a short-story writer by the skin of her teeth, and a novelist in training. Her award-winning work has appeared in places like Absinthe Literary Review, Best American Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Eclectica, Juked, Tipton Poetry Review and Salon. Visit her online at www.shannagermain.com.