The Arrow

I tuck the day away, watch the water
Circle the drain. Time does a slow roll

While Diana watches from her perch. Here
A scar yields depths unfathomed,

There a bruise marks me
Like a peach. The ripest fruit,

He said, the sweetest juice.
He once punched me in the kidneys

And blamed it on a dream, pulled
A leaf from my hair with exquisite tenderness.

Left me with an arrow still quivering
In my side, as a deer,

Running through the woods unknowing
As the blood unspooled like a ribbon.

Amanda Crum is a writer and artist whose work can be found in publications such as Eastern Iowa Review, Lonesome October Lit, Blue Moon Literary and Art Review, and Dark Eclipse, as well as in several anthologies. Her first chapbook of horror poetry, The Madness In Our Marrow, made the shortlist for a Bram Stoker Award nomination in 2015. She currently lives in Kentucky with her husband and two children.