Audrey T. Carroll is a Queens, NYC native whose obsessions include kittens, coffee, Supernatural, Buffy, and the Rooster Teeth community. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Fiction International, So to Speak, Feminine Inquiry, the A3 Review, and others. Her poetry collection, Queen of Pentacles, is forthcoming from Choose the Sword Press. She can be found at http://audreytcarrollwrites.weebly.com and on Twitter. She offers two poems:
Darling Daughter
When they want to cleave your bark to read
your rings, hack away at your outermost with
steel edges, accuse you of a petticoat
conspiracy that you are a part of because we
are all a part of it from the age when we pass
notes in our pastel bubble writings, then you
tell them, dear child, of the female narrative
not born of temptation & sin but of the
blood of your blood singing out
from
one generation to the next.
Two Clowns
For Mr. & Mrs. J
No stranger pair born
than the head doctor
and her ward
Tragedy granting the doctor
every reason to fall
and with a ward so charming,
How could she resist?
Years of attempted murders
both have survived
switching which side of the gun
each was on, who got
the last laugh
And that’s what today is all about:
Laughter in the madness
at the madness
surrounded by enemies of enemies
for a person who would
kill or die for the other,
laughing the whole way
and her ward with the red
smile, who mostly likes her
Sometimes
Never have such a perfect pair
of clowns been joined
To a future of many
Successful plans
Endless riches
Smile upon smile
And may you both
Finally
have that single thing
you want most—
Freedom to run the streets
Freedom from the knight
Sources:
“Darling Daughter” originally published in So to Speak Journal.
“Two Clowns” originally published in Crab Fat Magazine, Issue 5.
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