Accosted, by Lindsey Thäden

Marbles, from Split Shire, taken from public image bank at Pixabay.

Accosted

After Cracked Egg [blue] by Jeff Koons

                                      I'm no more your mother
                    Than the cloud that distills a mirror
                                          to reflect its own slow
                           Effacement at the wind's hand.
                                                             Sylvia Plath

how can I explain a million pinprick
needles nagging tugging an aching
sort of tug leaves you heavy
wet messy

mascara-streaked red and puffy
nothing ice and mascara cannot fix

ice ibuprofen kleenex concealer
ice ibuprofen kleenex concealer

fog

apply the mascara and smile at
your tiny face that face
that face you dreamt of as a little
girl that face that looked like you
twenty years before when all
you knew was chutes and ladders
barbie ken and operation the bzzz
of scraping the stomach viscera
as you try to make someone
whole

Lindsey Thäden

Editor's note: The image shown is a placeholder. The original inspiration for this poem is Cracked Egg (blue), by Jeff Koons, and you can see it here.
 
​Lindsey Thäden is the winner of the 2018 Luminaire Award for Best Poetry for her poem, "Waking to Pablo Neruda Pumping My Chest." Alternating Current Press called the poem "a jolting, refreshing read." Thäden also won the City of New York's 2016 #PoetweetNYC contest. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the Philadelphia-based Apeiron Review, The Coil, New York Metro, and Passages North. She is also a regular poet contributor at Vending Machine Press and The Ekphrastic Review.