Cassandra at Last Call – Sarah Grey
She drinks slow
from the frosted glass
of small griefs foreseen,
never muddled,
served ever neat
as a folded napkin,
tidy as a tavern
the hour before dawn,
the spills wiped clean,
the liars gone
to lie alone or stain
a stranger’s sheets.
The king
of closing time
offers gilded words:
I am—
I will—
I promise.
He is no Greek but
his gifts are swollen,
so thick the truth
trickles out at the seams
and glistens on his
four-martini skin.
I’m sorry, he’ll say.
He’ll wear contrition
like a silvered crown.
If he is Apollo of the
never-sleeping city,
she is steeled against
his arrows. If he is
a god, she hears only
snakes.
Sarah Grey’s poetry has previously appeared in Liminality, as well as in Polu Texni and Star*Line. Her short stories have appeared in a number of publications, including Lightspeed, Intergalactic Medicine Show, and Flytrap, and have twice received an Honorable Mention in The Year’s Best Science Fiction. She lives with her family in California, and believes life is better on purple suede skates.