C. M. Gigliotti is a multi-hyphenate artist with degrees from Central Connecticut State University and the Writers Institute at Susquehanna University. Her work appears in MEMEZINE, Rough Cut Press, Vernacular, CommuterLit, Prose Poems, Scraps, and more. She has lived in Germany since 2019.

C. M. Gigliotti

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Reading Forever...

(sonnet)

About age sixteen, school the safest place.
Nobody would have thought you needed space
To find yourself, or said that you bloomed late.
Imagine your surprise, then, when the great
And empty thing inside revealed itself
In what you plucked one day from off the shelf.

The author had, it seemed, caused quite a stir
With her description of a character
Who moaned, whose partner felt him come. It stung,
The scene's desire; it prickled on your tongue.
You pictured her, the prose written in her hand.
Come where? you thought. You didn't understand—
And wouldn't for years yet—the word alone
Could signify completeness. Over. Done.