Sugar and Spice Elegy
by Sierra H. Hixon

Runestone, volume 11

“You’re what happens when two substances collide.”
-Andrew Bird

Sugar shattered in the air and sent shrapnel
into every crevice, within our bodies, we hid

our angry engines, the ones that sputter and spit
with every bump of our flesh

against his; the spice on our tongues
baked into birthing, from birth— baked

into a whipped custard, to soothe
being swallowed over and over, sliding past

ridged teeth. The sound of each
girl, smeared like bedridden butter, smothered

under the embrace of thick jelly, like:
motor oil, glitter glue—

petrified across his pulse.