Poetry By Leah Mueller

          Tim Vrtiska CC

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Creature Feature #2

Eating popcorn in front
of a black-and-white television,
fingers drenched in
melted butter and iodized salt. 

The Bride of Dracula 
has made her fatal mistake, 
while Frankenstein’s monster

only wants acceptance
from a crowd intent
on his eradication. 

Next week, the Mummy 
will lumber across my screen, 
mindless as a drugged cow,

and I can stay up as late as I want,
at least until the test pattern
emerges. I watch everything,

the late-late news, the grand finale:
a rendition of the Lord’s Prayer
in sign language. Turning off
the television feels like saying goodbye

to an old friend I’m not sure
I will ever see again--or if I do,
one of us may have changed
into a creature no one can recognize.

I am already different: 
my bathroom mirror shows a face 
that has lived through 

multiple bouts of terror,
and I haven’t even begun.

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Leah Mueller is the author of ten prose and poetry books. Her new book, "The Destruction of Angels" (Anxiety Press) is forthcoming in October 2022. Leah's work appears in Rattle, NonBinary Review,  Midway Journal, Citron Review, The Spectacle, Miracle Monocle, Outlook Springs, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She is a 2022 nominee for Best of the Net. Her flash piece, "Land of Eternal Thirst" will appear in the 2022 edition of Sonder Press' "Best Small Fictions" anthology. Website: www.leahmueller.org.
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