2 poems
by Julia Aloi
Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School
Sweetness
The wrinkled pits
of stone fruits contain
hydrogen cyanide when
bitten,
small teeth breaking open
a scrap of slow death.
Fuzzy peaches
and blood cherries
and glossy pears
and violet pears,
rocks of poison
underneath the skin.
It seems as if the
fruit grows
around the poison,
as the girl grows
around the rot.
Confectionaries
Where does repressed
anger go in the body,
and does it grow?
Slowly, in the womb
like an anti-child?
A cluster of rage
with nowhere to fester?
What do we call this
pain in a woman?
Motherhood?
I have a recurring dream
of my own mother offering
up her eyes
to me
on a silver, lace-rimmed platter,
dusted with powdered sugar
like tea cakes and macaroons
on a lazy Sunday morning.
julia aloi
Julia Aloi is a writer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is an editor for BatCat Press, where she also practices a variety of bookbinding techniques. She serves as the managing editor of the award-winning literary magazine, Pulp. Her work has been published in Balloons Lit. Journal, LandLocked, Levitate Magazine, Jokes Review, Variant Literature, Sheepshead Review, and others.