SOPHIA VESELY - RED HOT SECRETS

Sophia Vesely, 19, is from Clearwater, Florida. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in W-Poesis, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, The Fiction Week Literary Review, The Blue Marble Review, Writer’s Egg Magazine, Bandit Fiction, Brown Bag Online, Girls Right the World, Bridge Ink, Route 7 Review, Down in the Dirt, Poetry Pacific, Oddville Press, Triggerfish Critical Review, Delmarva Review, The Big Windows Review, The Raven Review, El Portal, SLANT Poetry, and Steam Ticket. She also has a published poetry collection on Amazon.com entitled “The Road to Amour de Soi” that explores the complexities of first loves and heartbreak in order to empower young women through the notion of self-love.

Red-Hot Secrets
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Our fire 
of red-hot secrets,
once wildly vigorous 
in the grand, stone-silenced 
family hearth,
fed for generations 
by sizeable logs of deceit
and an absence 
of morals 
that blanket. 

Our family album,
all that remains
to kindle these flames
that have otherwise been stomped out,
as dead as the kin 
who lie cold in our plot.

So let’s flip through the pages...
Gather ‘round,
with your roasting sticks, 
marshmallows and chocolate,
to hear these ghost stories.

See here,
this is Uncle Stan.
Dead? Yes, at 37.
Children? Two whiny girls 
(right there andddd there)
with hair obviously not curly enough 
to hide the stubborn family nose.
Wife? This gold digger 
(look, you can’t miss her),
the one with the gold chain
and gaudy pearl earrings.
Do you see what she’s holding?
(no, not the girl, the wife)
Well, it’s not actually lipstick.
What is it? Filled with arsenic, of course.
Shhhh.
May Uncle Stan rest in peace.

Look here,
this is Grandpa Charlie.
Dead? Yes, at 58.
Children? You know my mother 
and my Auntie Theresa.
Profession? A driver,
but not the one of buses or taxis.
Then what? You see the Cadillac 
he’s leaning up against?
I believe that was his getaway car.
Those leather seats 
(look right behind his left arm) 
weren’t always so bloody red.
Shhhh.
May Grandpa Charlie rest in peace.

Oh! My favorite photograph,
this is cousin Susie 
(see, pictured centerfold)
with a giant sandcastle out on Long Island.
Dead? Yes, at 16.
Last seen? Passenger seat of the mayor’s convertible,
bound for Florida.
Oh my! Mayor’s wife throwing rocks at
her pretty head.
Shhhh.
May Susie rest in peace.

My marshmallow is burnt to a crisp.
We’d better close the album 
before somebody smells the smoke.

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