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Christina E. Petrides lives on Jeju Island, South Korea. She is the author of the children’s book Blueberry Man (Tchaikovsky Family Books, 2020) and more than a score of poems published in various English-language periodicals.
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Decomposition
She recalls the rainbow on a puddle,
engine oil spreading thin and iridescent,
winking at the wider world that afternoon
before ignorant tires drove through,
splashing droplets that swiftly dried on the pavement.
Dust motes waver in the heat from the lamp bulb,
glimmering threads pass through existence in a breath.
She chews her pen end and inhales numbered perfume
from the sticky resin on her face and neck,
knowing her passing attempts at freezing time
in person or in print would one day evaporate.
*****
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The Duel
A brace of tomcats began to curse at dawn
beneath my open bedroom window.
For half an hour, each summoned fiends from
the nine feline hells to sweep his rival away.
Staggering in my nightgown to the sash,
I groggily swore at both, but was ignored.
Suddenly, the larger beast rushed his enemy,
and pursued him up the empty street.
They then engaged with unsheathed claws,
and rolled out of sight, yowling, hissing,
intertwined in deadly combat.
The sun rose to bloody tufts of fur
littering the curb, the only evidence
(besides a throbbing headache)
of my sorely interrupted sleep.
*****
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