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Marionette Girl Replies

GAIA RAJAN

            after Sharon Olds

 

It hangs in its cell, a purple-headed inmate

strangled by prison linens.

It moves when he moves, a police dog

in primal heat, frothing at the mouth, coarse hair

matted by semen and sweat — and every morning

in his presidential bed, it stands up

for the anthem, and he aims it

like a missile.

GAIA RAJAN lives in Andover, MA. She's the Managing Editor of The Courant and a Poetry Editor for Saffron Lit. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in DIALOGIST, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Hobart, and elsewhere. She is a 2020 National Student Poet semifinalist, and her chapbook, Moth Funerals, is forthcoming from Glass Poetry Press. She hopes you have a wonderful day.

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