Organs of a Southern Girl
by Wendy Taylor Carlisle
Stomach: a downbeat accident, filled
by McDonalds, gorged on junk foor, bleeding
like a hound bitch ravaged by a pit bull
Eye: an outdoor drive-in, big-screen
showing antebellum cotillion graciousness,
crinolined and yes ma’amed into meanness
Brain: fear-based, banned-book, kudzu lit,
instrument for hiding intent
Lungs: a downbeat accident, lost cause
with cigarette, no-quit-stubbornness
sparked by carousel of year-round heat
Heart: split organ of a species bent
on suicide by roadside trash, city dump.
Saturday night beating, still pounding
Wendy Taylor Carlisle lives and writes in the Arkansas Ozarks. She has published four books and six chapbooks and is the winner of the 2020 Phillip H. McMath Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Terrain, TAB, Rattle, About Place, and SWWIM. A selection of her writing can be found at wendytaylorcarlisle.com.
Look for three additional poems by Wendy Taylor Carlisle in Issue 3 of Infocalypse, launching July 15, 2026.
Look for three additional poems by Wendy Taylor Carlisle in Issue 3 of Infocalypse, launching July 15, 2026.
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