Baby Picture

by | Aug 28, 2019 | Poetry, Web Exclusives

We burn his photo under the tree. My friend, I trust her witchcraft.Kai is a midwife and never asks for too much. She takes hands and fillsthem. Asks, Did you want to be a pet? I’d eaten clay for this, which tastedgood: like warm bread dough or a sour tongue. Which...

Two Poems | Brett Shaw

by | Jul 24, 2019 | Poetry, Web Exclusives

Orpheus Wanders Out of the Wood Were you following your own wound back? Firstscratch of skinned descent. Your parents must’ve been distant gods for you to appear in the wind of forest trails, patching home from what a song provides. Scattered notes. Nuthatches, like...

Jacinda Speaks

by | Jul 5, 2019 | Web Exclusives

At fourteen, you began calling me beautiful hyacinth girl after T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, and when the snow finally melted and spring came you plucked petals from the olive tree in the garden and weaved them into my red hair until even my eyes were covered like...

The Listening Tree

by | Jun 5, 2019 | Prose, Web Exclusives

What made me want him? That supple, brutal kingsnake of a boy, wine-lipped and longhaired. He was strange. People talked, but nothing touched him. I wanted strength like that, to find iron in my thin bones. So when he grabbed my wrist and asked me to come, I went. He...