The Living Dead Woman Does Not Care

if you’re comfortable with reflection
in distorting backs of spoons ::
if your heart stalls at inflection ::
if you’re shook by podcast news

when delivered by a chatbot
you can hear even on mute :: duende
in her knotted hands :: indifferent
touch unspools the skeins of geode ::

no concern is paid for nerves ::
another word for medium is symbiote ::
the still can be rebirthed :: disturbing
but forgettable :: she’s life-adjacent ::

earth as fever :: truth as inexact
amanuensis :: the rest is sycorax

The Living Dead Woman’s Book of Hours

and hours :: interminable as insomnia
or the time she takes to cross threshold
between anxiety and apocalypse :: drip
she cannot staunch :: pages she folds

to origami bestiary, pillow book :: her
lids do not withhold :: revenge fantasy
too bold for recluse, misanthrope :: if
sleepwalk means ghost-incursion, she

sees no reason to foreclose :: trending ::
forgiveness is overrated :: what keeps
her up at night :: parenthesis that will
not close :: is worth attending :: sheep-

shearing :: hours she spends pretending
she’s not awaking, not dead-ending

The Living Dead Woman Looks Through Glass

of coffin at what she wants to lose :: 
the way a mirror in a dressing room 
misleads so that the color grey can
be mistook for blue :: uncertain day-

light limned as if her shape held true :: 
she’s not the same as heart arranged 
on plate :: she’s not a maid :: or womb-
cocoon :: even if she’d wanted, stone 

would not re-fruit to compensate 
for misspent youth of binges, 
splurges, filling closet with red 
slippers, and so sensible shoes :: 

she still grew bone spurs, earned
no right to lie abed in afternoon

Brenda Mann Hammack teaches digital storytelling, creative writing, folklore, and women’s literature at Fayetteville State University where she serves as the coordinator of the concentration in creative and professional writing. She is managing editor and web designer for Glint Literary Journal. Other work in “The Living Dead Woman” series is forthcoming in Mudlark. Three other sonnets in the series appeared in The Queen’s Review.