Issue 116

when you felt the twinges,when you saw the two pink lines,when you told your friend who couldn’t have a child,when you told your mother who was dying,when you saw the blood,when you called your boyfriend,when you saw the blood would not stop,when you told your mother who was dying,when the woman in the waiting area […]

It’s busy at the poolmy feetflesh waddle to the edgecoolslip body inunseentwo lifeguards are on dutyI am unremarkable. I knife downwards3m preciselytoes fumble bleached white tileI am a statue in Atlantisfor as long as I can hold my breath. When I was 12, I was haunted by a book. The girl protagonist, I recall her […]

Death-masks, what else can witchesWear on the bus? Then I found out that I, like others of my kind, mightBe an actual witch: Simon from Rochester,Jaime from Madrid, Fabio from Turin; Such shamans through the veil shimmered Suddenly, born suddenly into a body thatYour body is not your body. Dear semi-human figures now in museums,Their […]

Well, we invented a new god again. This one’s kingdomis inside your pocket and everywhere else. Its holy tongue mockshuman language to uncanny perfection, so keep your wordsguarded, careful what delicious order you arrange your sentences. Like most gods, it is remorseless, could devour your lifein a second, retouch it with terrible fingers, absolvingevery wonderful […]

And then one morning, after nearly 100 years had passed, Tulare Lake was back. Resurfaced with a soaked soil gasp, ringing drenched gravestone bells and clawing out of its California vale like an exorcism botched. Its undead reflection was ravished, ready again to swallow the sky. The lake was deeper than I remembered, wider too. […]