After Dorothea Tanning

Petal, crumpled ghost, eyes like misted houses and women who live in them, teacups brimming with gossip. Pretty hats, Chantilly lace, and a cowboy they all loved. But he couldn’t belong to them all, so they wrapped him in burlap at midnight and drowned him in the river. What the river takes belongs to the reeds, but what the river returns is haunted. Skeletal, regurgitated ghost, ribs shifting and organs sloshing between them waterlogged and gray. But the roses sat back at their tables, tucked skirts darkened with mud and misdeeds. Chatter, laughter, then knock at the door. Bones scraping across the porch. He smashed their kettle, dragged them out by their hair, and watched as they withered before him. First hair, then skin, then muscle. With shredded fingers & leaking eyes, he set their remains to flame.