| Horror Vacui 2 by Alison Armstrong |
| Our Surgeon Father
(c) Alison Armstrong Our Surgeon Father, Who removed Adam’s rib And extracted Paradise, Give us this day Our daily vaccine. Innoculate us with Your Supreme Drug, Anesthetiser of impulse, Curer of imagination. Give us Your distillate Of Original Sin, The shameful droplets Of hastily masturbated sperm. Inject our rigormortified bodies With your antidote Of anhedonia and negation. We, Your obedient patients, Humbly promise To deny all false drugs, Surrendering our souls To Your divine scalpel. |
| Confection
(c) Alison Armstrong Flattened under rolling pin hands, I splatter out the edges, Snaking across the floured board. The cookie cutters Slice my feet And lacerate my chest. I am pre-shaped, Geometrically perfect. But my stumps ache, Yearning for the painful budding Of toes and breasts. I am a confection, A fabrication Sweetened with nursery rhymes Scriptures, and advertising slogans. As my flesh bubbles and splits, My crisped mouth smiles In a non-pareil row To entice, Seduce, And be consumed By my creator. |
| Sea Moon
(c) Alison Armstrong Your swollen white belly Floats on the dark water, Salt water womb Of spongy sea-flesh. Luminous white tentacles Undulate towards me, Rippling over the mollusk graveyard, The slimy pebbles, Wrenched birthings of cliffs. Between my toes Your white light creeps, Tickling soft and cold, A remembered death, blood and brine. Cyclops mother Calls gull-voiced, Piercing my womb With shards of longing. |