Lorelei Bacht

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and boiling water, I have scrubbed
your face off. I have scoured your
photograph from devices: his, mine
and everyone else’s – the clouds
are clean. I am prepared to storm
my sketchbooks, to pull out, tear,
to flame up a barrel, watch you
depart, a moonstone, a monsoon,
a monster gone for good. I do not
owe you an explanation. I do not
owe you a handshake. The five
syllables of your name recalled:
as a plainsong, a plague, a bunion,
a bad bout of food poisoning. And
that is it.

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Lorelei Bacht (she/they) is a person, a poet, queer, multi-, living in Asia. Her work has appeared / is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, Visitant, The Wondrous Real, Abridged, Odd Magazine, Postscript, PROEM, SWWIM, Strukturriss, The Inflectionist Review, Hecate, and others. She is also on Instagram (@lorelei.bacht.writer) and Twitter (@bachtlorelei).