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.