a golden shovel after Sylvia Plath

Bone deep it writhes inside me, so I
leave the world to look, heart shut.
Behind my lids a blackbird flutters, my
arsenic tongue strokes the backs of eyes
and everyone and everywhere a tomb and
the ghosts swirls their liquor and call all
night long to yesterday’s demons. The
wine-blood turns to poison, the world
shakes loose skulls until the sun drops
behind the gravestones to kiss the dead.

Kaecey McCormick is a writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has found a home in different places, including Jabberwock Review, One Sentence Poems, On the Seawall, and Clockhouse and her chapbooks Sleeping with Demons (2023) and Pixelated Tears (2018). When not writing, you can find Kaecey hiking up a mountain, painting, or reading a book.