A POEM BY JULIET COOK


           Black Taffy


           Black Taffy unexpectedly swirls in the cups
           of a pink foam egg carton. Small pearlescent basins
           stained. Her sticky fingertips stretch it out.

           She pops sugar skulls like they’re breath mints.
           Her piebald cat laps up mercury spills.
           It looks like an albino until

           the black core is revealed. A bullseye. Glistening beads
           on the pussy’s tongue. An oily seep beneath yellow wallpaper
           in her boudoir perfumed with licorice. Silver goblet

           of shiraz. Ramekin of white cake with a melanoid heart.
           The deviative grimalkin looks askance at the cream.
           Vamooses, then vanishes while slinking around

           the miscreated spiral staircase. It suddenly plunges
           into Black Taffy. Purling, puling, purring.
           Somewhere underneath warping floorboards, the clink

           as another thermometer shatters upon contact
           with the claw-dragged strings of Black Taffy.
           She peers into the chasm, emits an exploratory miaou,

           inserts a finger into the abysmal gloppiness
           and shimmies it around. Something hisses. Something heaves up
           a Black Taffy blob, creeping towards her wrist…



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Juliet Cook’s ‘Girl Gang’ and ‘The Laura Poems’ hand-designed ribbon-bound chapbooks of original poetry are available via BloodPuddingPress.etsy.com. Recent publication credits include Sein Und Werden, Wicked Alice, WOMB, listenlight and FutureCycle Poetry. Cook’s personal blog, CandyDishDoom is housed at www.xanga.com/CandyDishDoom. Her full-length poetry manuscript ‘Horrific Confection’ is currently seeking publication, as is her new chapbook ‘Heart Urchin’. Cook lives in a noisy neighborhood in a lovely Victorian-style house with the two main men in her life--her husband with his guns of steel and her Boston Terrier with his charming snorty sounds. Even though she already has two unpublished manuscripts on her desk, she is currently writing poetry for a third.


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