Live Encounters Poetry & Writing, Special Edition on Humour June 2024.
My life as a piñata, poem by Michele Seminara.
My life as a piñata
Peering through my strange, solitary eyes, I saw those who sought to destroy me queuing at the
clothesline for their turn to hit me with the big stick of shame. Some could barely contain their
titillation as they strung me up, each taking precisely three strikes, the more cunning among them
aiming for the soft spot everyone knows God leaves for the soul to escape.
I had snuck out long ago, entrusting the body to cosplay me. Now, my already lifeless avatar was
proving resistant to further degradation — rousing their most ruthless to seize the stick and
swing deliriously until my abdomen ruptured and all its lustrous sweetmeats slipped out. Then
the mob morphed into a cawing murder of crows and descended to feast on everything, even the
heart.
Having mistaken me for an effigy, nobody noticed that I was, in truth, standing off to one side,
where I had been watching in horror all my life. And so, despite this fresh cruelty, I came to only
the usual level of harm.
© Michele Seminara
Michele Seminara is a poet and editor from Sydney. She has published two chapbooks and two full-length collections, her most recent being Suburban Fantasy (University of Western Australia Publishing, 2021). https://micheleseminara.net/