Let Me Lead You Into Temptation by Sandra M. Yee

The tarot card reveals a death

looming over me but who doesn’t. Your heart

too has split like a melon, and we go about town

with juice running down our shirtfronts

and hoot at stares from passersby. That night

we lost it all we didn’t even know

we were gambling. Give regret a foothold

and she’ll swathe herself in ever thicker furs,

all the better to snuff you, my dear. I sift through

the collective imagination of what happens when we leave

our bodies — the heavens part like a sweetheart’s arms,

death scythes us into dark, a river rinses

our minds into squeaky clean plates and we’re free

to fail our loved ones all over again.

But enough with crucifixes and Ouija board

whispers. Let me tell you the story

of a daughter who loved her father so much

she spared him a prolonged illness

in which loose bowels and the rank soup

of failed organs would be the most potent memories

she would have of him, and even then blood

on her hands. No one holds a monopoly

on loss. The sharing of the weight offers small

and precious respite. I offer my clumsy music,

my heart an upturned hat. Your demons plus mine

could learn to love the sun, and to think we never

could have come here but for Eve’s trust

in all things dangerous. To be blinded by light

is its own form of seeing, the whole world

suddenly sky.

---

Sandra M. Yee lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where she enjoys hiking, camping, and thrifting for party frocks. Her work has appeared in Lantern Review, Rattle, Silver Rose Magazine, and TriQuarterly.