Up the Staircase Quarterly
  • Home
  • Nominations
  • About
  • Submit
  • Archives
  • Support
  • Home
  • Nominations
  • About
  • Submit
  • Archives
  • Support
Search

All Her Household Are Clothed with Scarlet by Reid Mitchell


"The girl can’t help it."

I start to count her vertebrae.
Again I lose track.
How can I be sure she’s human?

Her words are too big for her jaws.
They dangle like the black tails of struggling mice.
How can I know if she’s a woman?

Where she puts her heel, water pools.
When she bites, jasper blossoms.
How can I be sure she’s human?

Her arms outstretched hang the morning star.
Her perfumed dress has worn to rags.
How can I know if she’s a woman?

What she touches becomes human.
If I must be born again,
may I be born again of woman?

Locks pop open when she walks by.




​

Reid Mitchell is a New Orleanian teaching in Quanzhou, China. He has published poetry in In Posse, Pedestal, Cha, and elsewhere. He often writes with Tammy Ho Lai-Ming. Their works has appeared in Admit2, Barrow Street Review, and elsewhere. He has also published fiction and academic history.
Picture
© 2022 Up the Staircase Quarterly
  • Home
  • Nominations
  • About
  • Submit
  • Archives
  • Support