Elizabeth Holmes Is My Cellmate

by Amanda Dettmann

Elizabeth Holmes Is My Cellmate

We don’t share lipstick. We drop
blood like acid, smear the left-
over pricked purple under our eyes
for prison homecoming. Even here
there are favorites. She collects
meaty green bananas. A vote for me,
potassium for you! She teaches white
women to blink twice
in a minute. Bends expired
milk cartons into flower crowns.
Passes out like a Father. Saves
money for waterproof mascara
in commissary, black thongs to wear
inside-out. She never writes family. Displaces
nail clippings on top of her Dora
pillow. Persuades me to leave
my mint green shower robe
on my bunk, bodyless. I catch her
carving her initials in the courtyard
dirt before a Midwest flash flood. I vow
to protect her like a shoulder pad,
remind her she’s not Amanda Seyfried.
In December, when I forget I’m a poet,
she says in a high pitch, We all want voices
that kill. Her ex sends limp petals
in an envelope without postage.
She pours hot sauce straight
down her esophagus. Clears throat
like a ferry horn. French kisses me
with the lights on. She’ll be homecoming
queen; extinct passing extinction. I shoot
a cue ball at her peanut shell pupils.
Her halo fillets. My twin flame.

Amanda Dettmann is a queer poet and teacher whose work can be found in her book Untranslatable Honeyed Bruises. She earned her MFA from New York University and has received support from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Emerson Review, The Adroit Journal, The Oakland Review, and The National Poetry Quarterly, among others.

Lauralee Sikorski‘s art has appeared in numerous publications in the U.S. and Europe. Originally from New England, she now calls the shores of Lake Michigan home. A true multi-media artist creating murals, sculptures, and paintings and showing them across the United States.