Verdad Magazine Volume 22
Spring 2017, Volume 22
Poetry by Natalie Crick
Fruit By Candlelight
The candle snuffed out, leaving
A trail of cursive smoke.
She probed the apple
Turned to bruise,
Juice bleeding into skin,
Soft as a small skull,
Pressed her nail into the pear
Leaving a dirty moon
In the meat of the fruit.
It receded from touch,
Like a Woman
Who has been hit before.
Her fingers drip
Wax.
The corpse candles reveal
Their death walks.
Tulips
The Tulips have wilted.
Petals fall and light
Bends, grotesque,
Like a secret splayed open
At the seams of a wide
Black mouth.
The crowns remain lush,
A bouquet of teeth
Gleaming bright in a smile
As if to say:
“I am not dead yet.”
BIO: Natalie Crick, from Newcastle in the UK, graduated from Newcastle University with a degree in English Literature. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in a range of journals and magazines including The Lake, Ink Sweat and Tears, Poetry Pacific, Interpreters House and Jet Fuel Review.