Possession

I prayed. I made offerings.

I woke

cold one morning

and two spirits

gripped my belly.

What was my soul?

A frail flare

framed in a square

of darkness.

I wanted to annihilate.

Women whispered,

combed my hair,

bathed me

in holy oils,

but no one could see

that thing in me.

It was round, swollen, smooth

as the hood

of a scarab beetle.

It took

and took

until everything within

me emptied

into it.

Holli Carrell is a Pushcart-nominated writer currently writing and teaching in Cincinnati, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. Her writing has appeared in Salt Hill, Bennington Review, Quarterly West, Blackbird, Poetry Northwest, Tupelo Quarterly, The Florida Review, and other places.