Mickey Corrigan

                The following poems are excerpted from a series about Sylvia Plath

Blood Wedded

When the Brontë moors are behind them
all the rich food comes back up
the sea air a mill of hooks
surrounded by her ocean childhood
and occasional flashes arrive
from the shrieking beacon.

When away from the gaudy loud
fast lane they kick back, bicker
a Fitzgeraldesque time bomb—
he detonating verbs in the bath
she floating like a dream fish
into a sharp corner, mind in panic mode;
he munches raw steaks, hair a nest
viperlike while she statues
motionless in the hot white sand
head full of blue crested rollers
sultry, listless, or black as death blood
her plots full of murderous wives
suicidal and smug or running off
the page, his poetry spreading
swamp creatures and sludge
the blind destruction of brutal nature
he is unable to fight off.

When caught in a choking noose
tasting the malice of their days
the god she conjured from slack tides
in a rat race trap now, feet clayed
his electric radiance invisible
behind a looming shroud
of silence, condemnation
of their life as a prison term.

They hike the dunes, tracking
small fox and lithe rabbit twitching
in such great intensity and volatility
an owl clutching her thin chest
talons clenching, clenching
her bloodied heart, then it is
ready to explode, burst free
from its rococo bone cage.

Diary of a Suicide

Mornings for making magic
pulling words from a hat
in a borrowed study
performing sleight of hand
turning past into prose
terror to beauty, conflict
easing she embraces
the rabbit at her breast.

Self in crisis, nerves frayed
her touchstone, lodestar, uninterrupted
she imbeds her wand with starlight
exploding the gunpowder
casting spells, witchy now
she mutters shadow language
reality hanging itself
on its own invisible rope.

Catching up at last
with her three wishes
she is red-haired, black-caped
rooted, implanted
taking center stage
in the adopted city
where her magic thrives.

The show ends suddenly
when he uproots them
whisks them away
to the rural life
he craves
for his own dark work.

She is spellbound
by his romantic impulse
retreats to the country
solitude, isolation
his fishing holes
her loneliness
the familiar nausea
the loss of self.

A Style of Ruin

As if stung by bees all over
nettling fever to strip herself
of him, her own sweet life
returning in extremes
like the poems unfolding
in a moonlight striptease
before her red poppies, dark blue
cornflowers posed just so
each early morning in the still dark
she lifts the veil again and again
to peek at the war-torn flesh
the bomb blasts, flying limbs
hollowed out eyes and ribcages
a destruction that renews.

Visiting the city alone
a man there, sitting on his floor
fawn skirt swirls around her
slow sips from his tumbler
whiskey with a honey touch
the sound of ice tinkling
reminds her of New England
and the men she had there.

His words about an ivory body
not hers, the octopus cling
he tears free of her tentacles
sending her over the cliffs
she's riding the waves of fury
he's trashing hotel rooms
sleeping around, fox running
on erotic energy, madness.

With clear eyes, she unsheathes
the kitchen knife, cuts clean
to the bone, the blood jet
a rite of passage
uncorked, spurting in spasms
she's left behind
the bloody perfect wife

the muse rising out of his shadow
from the ashes of her maternity.

 

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes tropical noir with a dark humor. Her poetry has been widely published in literary journals and chapbooks. In 2020, Grandma Moses Press released Florida Man. Her most recent novel is All That Glitters, a scathing look at Palm Beach debauchery and greed (The Wild Rose Press, 2022).