Hurried Exchange

Voracious spices
bearing down on us
as though hoping
to extinguish
our disillusionment.

‘What right
do they have?’
I ask and you
hush me hastily
too aware of
other voices.

‘This is the city
of fear,’ you say.
‘Where back alleys
thrive,’ you say.
‘This is no time
for questions.’

Wide-mouthed
jacarandas
everywhere. We
move uneasily
under webbed
lamplights
no longer
holding hands.

Maria Cohut is a writer, reader, listener, watcher and lover of all things gothic, weird and obscure. She comes from the land of kitsch vampires and cheap alcohol, though she is currently based in the UK. On a day-to-day basis, she keeps impending madness at bay by striving to maintain the fragile balance between her research, her teaching, her writing and the slightly less exciting parts of her life.