Therese Tully
Unsatiated Suitors

Aujord’hui, we split the ennui:
eighty percent for you,
twenty percent for me.

Unsatisfied, we order the pie.
Your knife like wolf-teeth,
I lick my plate dry.

The Fallen Apple

You know the number of Hail Marys in a decade -
how long it takes you to say them.

You know the days the saints died -
what their patronage protects.

You know the risings & the fallings -
the kneelings, the prostrations.

You know the darkness of each sin -
both venial and mortal.

I seek the back of your mortal head -
curls turned grey.

It is all too much for me to know -
I cannot magic these creeds into simple terms,

rules to follow. I cannot swallow
and digest them, let them pass through me.

_ _

Therese Tully's poems have been featured in The Laughing Medusa. Her short fiction was a finalist in Paper Darts’ Flash Fiction Competition in 2016 and can be found on their website. Tully explores themes of gender, mental disorder, and familial relationships in a body of work that focuses largely on introspection and everyday life. Originally from New Jersey, she received her BA in English from Boston College in 2014. She currently works in Boston, Massachusetts.

>> Back to Issue 21, 2018