Summers at the Lake

By Síle Englert

When they were little, he melted a doll in a bonfire.
dangling half-spider from a stick, all legs;
no obvious sexual organs, just painted face warping,
bubbled streaks of red lips and cubist blue eyes
mid-cheek, slipping down toward painted breasts.
Unnatural disaster, avalanche of plastic flesh
dripping melted candy colours; wet chemical sizzle
hiss and splatter over heated rock, remember,
her body might be the doll or the fire but
either way held at safe distance for burning.
 
He was another boy on the bridge with a fish by its tail
caught coming close in the shallows, too brave to be let
alone and a rusting blue bicycle aching under her body
like another limb, dragged up hills too steep to ride;
she saw it swinging from his hand, gasping, gills
flickering might have said please don’t or no but
the arc of fish and arm a pendulum mid-swing and crack
of fishbones, wet fish-flesh slapped against cement.
Faint blond hairs on her legs will darken, thicken
compose themselves into scales dulling in August sun.
 
A crawling of years and pain turned girl-skin to plastic,
metaphored her body into easier, cleaner things: peaches,
melons, dark little berries when she was good and giving,
cuts of meat when she wouldn’t, and maybe there’s nothing
so uncomfortably human as a doll melting into a bonfire
or the sound of something small drowning in air.

---

To the Man on the Sidewalk Who Pretended

His Hand was a Gun

By Síle Englert

There were reasons,
Explanations for
Your face so close

Sadder, tarnished version
Fingerprint smudges on
Self-appointed messiah

Like a child says:
The air that held
Must be swallowed

Almost is a tactile word
Even if your voice
Lets harder tissue form

bruised lace tatted into
your index finger
breath stinking of loss,

of the Jesus I remember
barely-ancient pages
tasked with ridding streets

I didn't touch you
my face is stained
rather than inhaled

leaving the same scars
or intrusive finger
​keeping dangerous words

your feral hair and beard
a centimetre from my ear
you screamed: bang

my childish questions tainted
made them nervous
of women

I touched the space around you
thick with your resolution
adhering to my lungs

as other weapons
breaking the skin
underneath.

---

Garbage Disposal

By Síle Englert

My mouth, where you put discarded things:
rust icicle broken from a car-body
dark apron, pocket still heavy with coins
finger-painting in purple, black and blue.
 
I swallowed paper names
your tongue stumbled, forgot
and spat, mispronounced, at the air.
 
Wore down my teeth chewing cast-off
clothing, hoping saliva would dissolve
your smell, a dusting of cells. 
 
My mouth, your unwilling oubliette:
tonguing broken aquarium glass
lingering taste of ink licked from salt palms
and storm clouds mottle my lips.
 
I eat your leftovers.

---

Síle Englert is a poet, fiction writer and visual artist from London, Ontario. Her short stories have been shortlisted for Room Magazine’s fiction contest and longlisted for Prism International’s. Her poetry has placed second in Contemporary Verse 2’s 2-Day Poem Contest and has been featured in journals such as Room Magazine, Ascent Aspirations Anthology, Misunderstandings Magazine, The Saving Bannister Anthology, and Crannóg Magazine (Ireland), and is forthcoming in The Fiddlehead.