by Susan Cossette
This is where I woke up,
sweaty, in beige underwear
a dirty nightshirt,a
my hair in moist tendrils.
The light barely comes in
through the grey shades.
When it does,
there is dust in the light.
Skin cells, pet dander float.
There are black wool robes,
hung on an iron bar along the cement wall.
The cats claw and climb, then flee.
Dark-robed figures point at me
and put the red hood over my head.
Judges, all of them.
Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, she is a recipient of the University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, Vita Brevis, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Fast Fallen Women (Woodhall Press), Tuesdays at Curley’s (Yuganta Press), and After the Equinox.