Sometimes domestic life can be as unsettling as a pipe full of creeping centipedes, as Juliet Cook shows us in her wry & visceral “Domestic Mini-Horror,” one of two poems she contributed to our Winter 2015 issue.

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WHY AM I SUDDENLY GETTING DOMESTIC
roaming charges while talking on the phone with my mom
who lives fifteen minutes away?

Why am I crowded by too much normalcy,
with not enough uncanny ghost wings
flying underneath my sheets?

Who tossed my streaks of clairvoyance
all the way down into the damned garbage disposal?
Whoever you are, this won’t last forever.

If I concentrate hard enough, I can create
my own onslaught. I can shiftily rise myself
out of that slimy, dirty hole.

Centipedes will start maneuvering up
out of that disposal, dripping red,
but still crawling.

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JULIET COOK‘s poetry has appeared in many literary publications, including Arsenic Lobster, Diode, ILK, and Menacing Hedge.  She is the author of more than thirteen chapbooks, including POISONOUS BEAUTYSKULL LOLLIPOP (Grey Book Press, 2013), RED DEMOLITION (Shirt Pocket Press, 2014), a collaborative chapbook with Robert Cole, MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2015) and a collaborative chapbook with j/j hastain, Dive Back Down (forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press in 2015). Find out more at www.JulietCook.weebly.com.