That night she woke to find another oddity: during sleep her heart had split or twinned itself, and where one muscle pumped before, now beat two. Her blood coursed through her veins twice as fast as before, and over those paths her skin buzzed and stammered, like wire strung tautly between two poles and charged […]
Poetry 95
Sarah Kain Gutowski: Chapter VI: The Children Have a Request
The season stretched itself thin, weakened by storms and heat. Inside the damp, shadowy space of the children’s fort, the woman with the frog tongue wove baskets and bowls with tight, interlocked laces, while her silk stitches began to fray and lengthen. The gap between her lips widened to where the children could see the […]
Rosie Garland Nursery Games
She hides in the thicket of shadows under the stairs, tucked behind the shabby hedge of old coats, the long-boned broom, the mop nesting its claws in a bucket. She bites her tongue, hooks fingernails into her palm. It hurts less than the end of bedtime stories. She wants to be as small as a […]
Rosie Garland: Out of Water
That first time, he grinned. I slid my fingers into his mouth, unrolled the snail of his tongue, sucked it against my own. Now he mumbles excuses. When I reach for him he pulls back, gags at the salt slurp of my lips. He picks off my scales; calls them scabs. My bones ripple beneath […]
Emily Corwin: thwack
leg buckles and boom down she goes into snow powder good for packing. she tucks and rolls like a cold boulder glob crashes to his windowsill ferocious little she hunger-filled her mouth frothing like half-starved pack of wolves— all teeth and velvet.
Emily Corwin: pink girl takes a tumble
squish squash she walks she dreams of woods trees hankering for child meat. The way is wet and terrible what can she do boo hoo spreads her mouth real big, dry lips doesn’t like water and she crackles. feels so crumbly, she do too scaredy cat to skate across the river bone so skinny brittle […]