Poetry

Into something rich and strange

by Lisa Giacalone

There’s a house on the hills of Segesta.
          A hand
          so wet,
                    it drips when it knocks.
          Passioned plastic, porcelain mothers
                    nail their wooden sons to the cross.

There’s a house on the hills of Segesta.
          The gas stove’s leaking taste,
          saline.
          Brack water,
                    black
                              brine fed to us in the mornings.
                    Long
                              have the Gods been drowned.

There’s a house on the hills of Segesta.
          She called
                    from beneath;
          Our father heard her
          calling, too:
                    He cried out from the shore,
                              he knew, yes, he knew.

There’s a house on the hills of Segesta.
          So you
                    went — you were wicked —
          you had to die.
          You
                    would breathe water.
          You went under and I —

There’s a house on the hills of Segesta.

Appeared in Issue Fall '23