Chelsea Fanning
Virgin Mary as Teakettle
Praise be to you, spattered
with chicken grease and garlic fat, the cerulean of your enamel
like a blue mantle,
sanguine in its austerity.
Down your throat holy faucet waters
pour, impregnating your belly before
you’re cast into the flames.
Blue light caresses your sides
heats up the sea inside you,
tempest waves rising to a fever
until you scream in ecstasy or terror.
Originally published in MER 20, “Mother Figures” issue.
Chelsea Fanning is a writer, poet, editor, feminist, witch from New Jersey. She has an MFA from Drew University and is the poetry editor at Fatal Flaw Magazine. Previous work has appeared in From Whispers to Roars, OyeDrum, Flora Fiction, Literary North, and Cauldron Anthology. Her poetry delves into themes of redefinition, reclamation, wholeness, muchness, womanhood, religion, identity, gender, rebirth, and regeneration.