J Pascutazz

The Girl Who Grew Antlers

​[after Emily Dickinson]
​
You look up. Nothing there? A
white fluffy mass? A loaf of bread? A curious
animal? A woman made of cloud?
If she fell like lightning would you be surprised?
Do you see her, or are you blinded by the
flashing of her anger in the sky?

Once there was a lady. Once there ’twas
a lady. Yes, but what was she like?
Shall we compare her to a
summer night in Brooklyn? Or a sheet
of paper on an old timey writing desk, with
only a fountain pen for a friend? Then there were her horns

Horns? Yes. They stuck up from the
crown of her head as she clawed the bloody sheet
on her bed. What do you think she was
scratching there in blue
veined ink? Was it called The
Girl Who Grew Antlers?
And what if all her words suddenly went gray

and blew out the window? Would it
be tragic that we almost
knew but hadn’t quite touched
her through the damp script the
fog twisted across her cemetery lawns?

How she composed herself just so
that we could be brought low
and lifted by it
Was it that the earth leaned
in to feel what she felt then
that made the room we imagined her in statelier?
Its cozy yet open plan drew

to it and distilled words. And
these echoes of her torn gown trailed
off to heaven like
angel robes
time swept away

leaving her standing naked above us, a
mad queen
who’d take the world adown
a
notch in her satin
hand, and walk the aisle

terrible as the dawn, with strength she had
so long withheld. How can we not
look upon her beauty and despair? How can we not be the
perfect children of her majesty?

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J Pascutazz is a non-binary writer with Asperger’s syndrome. Raised in rural Ohio. Graduate of Bennington College. Resident of Brooklyn. Published by Miracle Monocle, Cleaver, Frigg, and others. A chapbook, ‘Lichen Land,’ was published by The Operating System in 2020