ruin

after Kristen Margiotta

by Angelo Colavita

my votive:

aflame —
carries off
a caustic offering

carries light
banishes shadows

a flush of blush
over coal black

blotted | clotted

cloud of
blood and amber

(forever red
slowly holy)

sacred ablation:

burn to
return to

light

a slight incision

— a slit chamber
drips a drop
below

glowing oblation:

a heart
in ruin

Rowan Morrison The Martyr

After The Wicker Man (1973)

by Joel Allegretti

Age Twelve

I was a player in a Maypole con.

A man of the law came to find a missing me.

We fed him to the harvest deities.

“‘The Lord is my shepherd,’”

He bellowed-sang as the fire scribbled

The End before his panicked eyes.

Still our apples wish not to grow. 

I discovered a book in his room at the inn.

A book of histories, rules, and revelation.

I read in secret, by candlelight in bed,

By daylight in the cave by the sea.

Age Thirteen

I watched Bramble Gordon burn

For the promise of Summerisle’s bounty.

Still our orchards are rows of skeleton fingers.

The lawman’s book tells me of a word that

Became flesh. The flesh became the sacrifice.

The sacrifice became salvation. Salvation became

The harvest.

I rename myself Rebecca. Not even Mummy will know.

Age fourteen

The sun sets.

The torches beck.

It takes a hundred years for me to walk

The hundred yards to the woven furnace.

The townsfolk sing, “‘Sumer is icumen in.’”

I murmur, “‘He restoreth my soul.’”

Countess Marya Zaleska

For Gloria Holden in Dracula’s Daughter (1936)

by Joel Allegretti

I hate the night life

And the box of earth.

They make me sad.

I pursue release from

My moonlit prey and

Daybreak’s scorn, but

The mirror says, “No,”

So, I’ll never see

My seeking eyes

And the sadness

In them.

First Date Intentions

by Daniel Edward Moore

The Fir tree & headlights resented

the rain’s slick introduction, the 

romantic slam of feet & brakes 

ending with a fruitless floorboard kiss.

It’s the taste of glass I remember most, 

a vase shaped by teeth & lips, a floral

reminder of what it costs to bloom 

from a stranger’s mouth. When lightning 

laughed at the various flames consuming

my first date intentions, the last thing 

I heard as you closed my eyes were hairs

burning one by one & the sky inhaling us.

Why Humans Must Not Flirt
with MermaidS

by Juleigh Howard-Hobson

Let’s have another game instead,

I am tired of this playing dead,

Three days is too long. Go ahead,

Get up. You win. It's all gone wrong.

It didn’t go the way I said,

Your lips have lost their ruby red…

And all the hair comes off your head…

No one can hold their breath that long.

Requiem: Before YoU

by Gary Glauber

I never dated a funeral director,

never made love in a body bag.

It sounds strange. It was.

Something not easily related to others,

every night another foggy secret. 

When you asked me to lie corpse-like still,

when the quiet seemed almost barren,

those were times it seemed far too much.

The antiseptic feel of your examining table,

the cold couch in one of the upstairs rooms,

the long stretch in the back of the hearse.

We explored each other in loci of odd locales.

Death is a reminder to love now, you said.

And we did so often. You, telling tales

of body parts discarded, the required skill

of expert cosmetician, blending

memory and reality into the best

workable possibility. That also described

our times together, a relationship of

touch and lonely longing, of desperation

fueled by need. I became a phoenix,

rising from embers of a burnt-out past

to claim your naked kisses, declaring 

freedom in the moment as never before.  

Your regular reminders cautioned how 

nothing is guaranteed, how time is rented

from the universe in hours, days, weeks,

how gratitude is a gift best expressed

without clothing. The plastic flowers

swayed in the stale air, trying to escape

the old vase, the vale of tears, the grief

everlasting. Then one day it was as if

the preservative poison coursed through

your veins. It was gone, buried along

with last week’s grandmother of twenty, 

a peculiar memory that seems stranger yet.

Prayers and wishes could not change this

wisdom shared with countless mourners:

Eventually we all move on.

Perpetual State

by Joanna Valente

i am everything and everywhere I have lived and all those places are within me 

and they live 

and talk through me in a little third eye with no caps and no cunt like my body 

and a woman called k said andrew jackson's ghost fucked her pretending 

to be elvis presley 

and my birthday present was giving you a blow job when i was 21 

and i didn't even drink

i was so afraid and you were drunk all the time and another boy 

not quite a man 

pushed you when you walked over me your body all tumble and weeds and bloated 

[

and i don't remember when i first started dreaming

of this almost-secret house covered by earth-grown things and ghosts 

who embedded themselves in all the rooms 

because they don't know where else to go not because they care about you 

or want to torment you like your mother tormented you like your abuser tormented you 

scratching the inside of your cunt with his nails because he wanted you 

to know who was daddy 

]

when t cried during the twin peaks episode when ed and norma are free to finally fall

in love and that's when i knew it was over and that's when i knew he'd leave 

and that's when i knew he fell in love with someone else like falling is a choice like 

falling doesn't torment your body like falling isn't a downward motion 

but heavenly like 

a body that was actually created by a loving god 

and that's when i knew he loved someone else 

and that wasn't me and months later i am on the sidewalk looking down and i am 

panting and calling a lyft to pick me up even though i can walk to the G 

it's not that far but how could i use my legs after being choked in a bar 

when no one in the bar said shit and he bit the side of my chin my face so hard 

i felt it

for minutes after and there was a bruise on the side of my face for days 

and i still wonder what the bartender thought 

did he think i wanted it did he think i enjoyed it and did he know this man works 

for the white house and bragged about meeting the president and i can't tell you 

dear reader that i was surprised because i am never surprised 

when a man sees no boundaries 

creates only boundaries

for himself and this is not the color of water and we are not meant to be in boxes

without light or mouths and my body has five cats inside of it scratching and clawing 

and i want to break free of this body break out of it like a mold and scream 

that we don't need to be artists to feel and who taught you that where did you learn

that i was the woman holding hands with a man so happy but i was none 

of those things that last time i was in this old castle full of water 

being chased by these things not humans but they looked just like us and 

is that our fate 

nine burning moons is the fate we deserve is relics burning big as notre dame 

these spaces created by lost bodies you've never seen and we mourn buildings 

more than the nameless bodies that die every day like a whip you want to feel 

so bad your ass is already bruised with a fake smile 

like the one your boss wears because she wasn't cool enough to be popular 

in high school so she makes your life hell right now because hell on earth right 

because that's real gold on your fingers right 

because have you figured out how to capitalize your own body 

yet? 

The Woman with a Thousand Heads #2

by Glen Armstrong

I remember the woman

with a thousand heads, 

who danced her hypnotic dance 

at the Halloween party, 

her entire body tattooed 

with nothing but skulls. 

The way she pulled each eye in

attendance toward the empty 

eye sockets inked upon her 

naked body impressed me, but later

as she smoked a Lucky Strike

in a geisha robe, her skin was just 

a collection of blank stares, 

a congress of empty heads.

Cardinal

by Philip Elliott

there is more to this / life / blurred by the / dirty glitz / of 

poorly cut cocaine / shots of Jameson / icy fingers of six a.m. 

/ comedowns clutching your spinal / cord holding you down // 

good things / are hidden in every / moment you are / drowning / 

to get away from // the harsh beauty / of snow-capped roofs / 

from eight floors high / shocking scarlet as / the cardinal / 

descends like a bloody-winged / angel / declaring war on a / 

colorless world / hardback books / breakfast tea / snoring pug / 

trashy TV / pearlescent skies closing / a long day simply / 

existing // it’s beautiful to be / alive / it’s beautiful to be 

/ boring / & I will show you / why / if you / let me

The Shadow You

by Micah Zevin

Waking up in the dark is eerie

but not as eerie as the news.

It’s an assault on the senses, an echo

that never seems to stop bouncing off 

the walls of caverns.

When you are perpetually tired, 

you forget yourself 

escalating aches, pains and blockages

that lead(s) to dwindling options,

ambitions. 

Am I am becoming a stranger to and in

my own body? 

Am I a cloud hovering

over myself in humid air 

about to burst with rain?

When operating partly in the dark

you must find a high-powered flashlight

to navigate the forest and 

find your way home, 

if you have a home.

Oh Mockingbird! 

Every breath I take, 

you are burrowing into my bones

until I pray 

to be in fine hands

to move to another land

where life is not only a stage 

and you are turning

the now browning pages. 

There are no thrones for

me to sit on nor thing nor

people I have ever called

marvelous. 

Live from jokes about reunification

and peace 

I am greeted by

a nation’s dismantling sanity,

the crowds in and outside my mind

trying to avoid high stakes missions

instead to be persuaded 

that all I can do or desire to do 

is play it safe. 

The sun peeks through

then hides. 

The words are a huge deal 

and true 

but you and they must

have boundless curiosity 

or be left behind by hope 

that there is a better role to be had

before you 

perish—

The Farewell Children

by Mia Kaidanow

We grow them up

slow. 

Please —

take note of the bright 

and splendid

plumage. Rarely do you see 

such shine. Their limbs,

strong and supple, are able

to bear 

extreme burden. And, of course, 

their throats

have been carefully 

and finely 

oiled. Many months 

have been invested into a 

proper education. They must 

be raised 

carefully; those teeth 

do what teeth do.

If you are not vigilant, they will learn

to hate people 

indiscriminately. Like this

they become useful to no one, and

are best disposed of. Try not 

to get too attached; despite

their appearance, they are 

a thing hollow

as air.