The Masticating Dead

by Anastasia Stelse

Deep in the earth, they chew

their nails to points, scratching at

the casket’s inner cloth. They

are hungry—the dead—starving

for lives they left behind, people

who should be in their place.

For some, it is revenge. Black bile

bubbling at their lips, forced by some slip

of fate or their loved one’s hands

around their necks. For others, it is the love

they lost that compels them to keep

clawing, to gnaw their way up through

coffin and earth, to reclaim their hearts. Some

we call vampires, others, zombies.

Still, there are others, the dead that grind

their own teeth together, wondering

what they did to deserve this purgatorial

plot of hell on earth—what did they forget

that would set them free?