Beasts

By Erynn Pontius

White horses don’t gallop

on pavement streets,

yet it was easy 

to believe fairies 

fluttered in and out 

of window panes

with teeth in their pockets. 

If handed a green apple,

don’t bite.

The beasts never came 

out from under my bed,

but when I closed my eyes,

I could see horses

wheezing on frosted cement,

turning gray;

I stepped over 

their shivering ribs,

teeth clamped shut.

Absence turned faces

into a blaze of torches and pikes,

a shimmer of white silk

flailing in thorns, 

a fingertip pricked with blood.

Seams filleted from the binding

of a story whispered under the sheets

the strings of a body in submission.

The fruit juice seeped

across my tongue

like an itch.

Eyes open

I stroke molars

clinking in my pockets

feel the ridges, the ivory bone.

You can’t see

the beast’s eyes,

if you pull the covers

over your head.

Erynn Pontius works at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. She graduated with honours from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Arts in Writing and Rhetoric Studies and a minor in Creative Writing. Most recently, her poems and short stories have been featured in Lemon Star Magazine, Capulet Magazine, The Dying Dahlia Review, Burning House Press, The Hungry Chimera Literary Magazine, and the Canticle Literary Journal.