By Aoife Kirby My mother fed me arsenic from a tarnished, silver spoon She recited practiced passages and chased me ‘round the room I...

By Emma Keun Once she wept For candles For fat bodies, melting As cream, curdling Into thick, sticky rivulets At the nadir of a lurid...

By Ed Kennedy I’ve found a technique to calm my mind, Lying in bed, I think of darkness, In a void, downward falling, No escape,...

By Kate W McGuire I smile and wretch in bittersweet company reflecting on the fact my palette has expanded.   They remind me of my past...

By Gwyneth Box Sounds rise through plaster, wood and dust; they twist between the ceiling joists, and round ceramic tiles to twine with...

By David Allard Dry-eyed when her mother was laid to rest in the arms of greasy mud, walled within an invisible tower, she moved with...

By Ann Westgarth Your yellow eye tells me you are Wolfman, and like the sun rising in the sky of your sclera your amber iris glows. There...

By Hannah Baxter Starfish ravage the dead sea lion, insatiate stellate horde, spiny limbs latch on, degloving front flippers down to bare...

By Ghost of Earth In my womb grows an aching child of fire and in her belly flickers a lone black candle one that draws death’s head and...

By Damen O'Brien I will slip between the loose scales of a fish. I will tickle under the silver swivel of an eye, lodge like an old hook...

By Adrianna 'Drienne' Buczek I dig in the petrichor-smelling ground until my hands were bruised and fingernails bled I crawled into dark...

By Italo Ferrante i groped my way out of a needle pit i swished through a fan of blades snapped knuckles twisted muscles watched the...

By Jess Richards Inside the body, Grief morphs into an insect with a sharp sting. Grief is endangering— it grows articulated legs, crawls...

By Andrew Barnes She is too tired to chew food. Imagine fatigue so all embracing that only movements of unconscious reflex can occur, and...

By Anthony Gannon From my icy window fierce frost flanked the land in mist. In the frigid fields stark, naked trees wilted pale. That...

By Dominic James In a shortage of materials before the war my paints were spoiled, Quinacridone and yellows altered by rich oils spilled...

By Hidden I write what I see I see what I know Today’s season is about warmth Heat burning on the face as it rests bare before a burning...

By Daniel Gene Barlekamp The water and the weeds have taken over this place. Islands of graves dot the surface— an acre here, a plot or...

By Anne Casey I feel them everywhere the ones who left the thin girl shivering in the dark cupboard upstairs when I reach to put away...

By Elara Arani If I have red flags, it’s because the white flags my body bore in acquiescence have been dyed in the boiling blood of...