wicked alice| fall 2011

Sharon Venezio

Obsession \äb-'se-shən, əb-\
n.

1. If he touches the table once, she will leave him. If he touches
the table twice, she will stay. Even numbers have the power to stop death,

odd numbers rot the brain.

2. If he speaks for her, she learns to keep her lips still, the
shutters slid shut. If not talking is a kind of death, he has killed her.

A cluster of numbers rottingin the throat.

3. Spring does not replenish their lives, though the yard is alive
with Honeysuckle, Hyacinth, Hollyhock. Birds swollen with song.

A digital hunter, he comes and goes with his
camera, returning with a piece of nature, captured.

4. Everything under the arc of routine, even Spring with flowers
planted four inches apart. If he plants an odd number, he won't survive winter.

5. Once a girl looked up, wanting to fly. But listening was like an
avalanche.

6. When he dies, will birds fold their wings in grief?

7. If only the world were innumerable.

National Geographic

F2
The significance of a bird
flying over a continent
depends upon
the position of the sun
and the angle of the camera.

F4
The Gray Whale, which travels
the circumference of earth
more than 30 times,
is as meaningful as a camera lens.

F8
The fate of a tree
rests upon the wide angle view
of the Monarch's migration.

F11
The sharp lens of distance
reveals the pattern on the sole
of an elephant's foot,
unique as a human fingerprint.

Love Letters

L
now that I no
longer love
the one I love
and revealed
my red dyed
my tied heart

O
I resolved
not to tell you
to let it rest
in the gray
matter
the low drone
of my brain

V
for three years
nothing
has grown in me
what I mean
my word my red
at the end of every
conversation
I expect death

E
love, you
are beating me
in vain
speaking to say
absence
is only a word

Sharon Venezio received an MA in creative writing from San Francisco
State University, and is currently working on a manuscript from her
home in Los Angeles. She is the recipient of the Mark Linenthal Award
for Poetry. Some of her work can be found in Transfer, Parthenon West
Review, Iris, The Northridge Review, Stirring, as well as other online
and print journals.