By A Mother Bereft My to-do list looks different these days. No longer hastily scribbled notes of things to chase, no columns of musts and maybes, no flower doodles unfurling in the corners. Now, it’s how to breathe. how to be. Focus is evasive. My mind drifts like smoke unanchored, shapeless, always curling back towards you. I catch myself staring through the window, eyes scanning the road for a shape that will never appear. Some part of me still expects your return the soun

By Zi Lloyd-Jones Gaping maw like no other Knows Rivulet of blood from infant born I live for these hills, this land I was raised But burning like flame within My instinct to consume Skin, flesh, mortal grain I care not, feed the fire I do not want to be this way I do not want to live For destruction So upon each setting sun I watch Waxy glow suffused amber, ichor Bury me in the long grass that itches Embed me in the soil of our Mother Should the urge overcome me again And r

By Abigail Pinder I watch my lovers trembling hands reach for sacred thighs Gripping my velvety flesh with wonted abandon, he splays them into the old hay My body doesn’t fight as his fingers press trails into the blue lines of drying veins The stillness I gift him pricking his exposed appetite Heavy hot breath dripping between us, against the frosty draft penetrating the slats of the barn Unfrozen, black blood seeps, oozing down my paling skin to meet his calloused touch And