The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
As Quick As Poison
by Sonora Taylor
In the darkness, liquid pooled
Upon a table in the wood.
A bottle lay inside her hand
And seeped its poison in the land.
She’d thought a drink would calm her nerves,
That one last sip would stop the stirs
Of voices crawling in her mind
Which fed her thoughts and dreams unkind.
But when she drank that fatal cup
And took a moment to look up,
She fell to earth. Her time had passed
As quick as poison through a glass.
Fiction © Copyright Sonora Taylor
Image courtesy of Nina D’Arcangela
More from Sonora Taylor:
Without Condition
Cara Vineyard lives a quiet life in rural North Carolina. She works for an emerging brewery, drives her truck late at night, and lives with her mother on a former pumpkin farm. Her mother is proud of her and keeps a wall displaying all of Cara’s accomplishments.
Cara isn’t so much proud as she is bored. She’s revitalized when she meets Jackson Price, a pharmacist in Raleigh. Every day they spend together, she falls for him a little more — which in turn makes her life more complicated. When Cara goes on her late-night drives, she often picks up men. Those men tend to die. And when Cara comes back to the farm, she brings a memento for her mother to add to her wall of accomplishments.
Cara’s mother loves her no matter what. But she doesn’t know if Jackson will feel the same — and she doesn’t want to find out.
Spreading the Writer's Word 
This poem reads like an incantation for me, too. Quite the scene.
P.S. Nice line wraps and cadence.
Reblogged this on Sonora Taylor and commented:
As a bonus for World Poetry Day, I have a poem of my own up on Spreading the Writer’s Word! Check out my latest piece in the Ladies of Horror Flash Picture Prompt Challenge, “As Quick as Poison.”
A terrific poem.