An excerpt from

Siren
by Kateri Lanthier

SIRENS

I was the waif in the snowbank of the banquet hall parking lot.
A voluptuous stray. A bravura drunk. My thoughts encrypted in sugar.

Chiming through my rain-streaked gaze, the hues of this week’s cocktail:
curaçao blues, maraschino rage, olive, lime cordial, not bitter.

Unplugged from the folk circuit, unhinged by your grin.
When the heat deigns to return, the extremities sing pain.

The perimeter keeps expanding. Shots ricochet round the arch.
Catch me, catch me, if you must! Bake me into the Earth’s crust.

I clawed you from the rock and now you glisten on my finger.
In the marble at your temples, I can trace the throb of doubt.

All night the blind truck-river-road courses past my house.
Sirens swim the butterfly to comfort each shipwreck.