Tag: Issue 5

face me Oxymandias / open your stone eyes / this world has changed

Pale hands beckon like open flame / foxfire on your lips / leads me deeper into your swamp / like folk tales of buried treasure / that I want to make true.

1. cutting a pear / 2. the storm petrel does not land until it dies

On the longest day of the year / we wait for nightfall, slouching on / your grandmother’s porch, pack / of cigarettes balanced on the arm / of your plastic lawn chair.

I am the place where / hooves join dirt / where fur and flesh / meet and cut apart

in velvet grasp of eternal night / a building wrapped in strips of glass, light / slicing bravely through starless dark / so utterly alone, fragile before shadows.

I’m so glad / you killed her— / my doe-eyed sister / who could not read or dance or carry a worthwhile conversation, / who had no might despite her name / but powered a thousand ships with her blood.

I never understood the feeling in my stomach / When witches and monsters came / On the TV. For years I thought / They made me afraid