Shadows below, like those of animals.
And at the edges of the path, pricks of milkweed,
like flames of fur.
Beyond that, a single streetlight
onto the left side of her face, casting a faint gold.
Shadows
stretch to the …
54
Ashes at my Window
My childhood home had a single window. It sat along
a skyline of onion domes and steeples that punctured
the sky as if to force their way into heaven.
There, priests in black robes swung incense from chains,
erecting columns …
Self Portrait as a Childhood Memory of a Taffy Machine in the Window of a Seaside Shop
I recall a taffy machine
Undulating pale yellow
Banana? Lemon Cream?
The flavor is immaterial
I remember delicate machinery
Armfuls of stretched sugar
Pressed from level to lever
Self pulled taffy
My motoral slowing
As I pass from lever to …
cerberus horse & six pack of turtles
cereberus horse
Death opens the box
fingers the cemetery
looks for the right shade
of lipstick
fingers the cemetery
looks for the right shade
of lipstick
to know
herself
is to survive
herself
herself
is to survive
herself
for now, she is
a more translatable version
of
before
a more translatable version
of
before
insanity is
alluring
the importance of trapdoors
alluring
the importance of trapdoors
Lessons in Chemistry
Fuck, I messed up—Dee licks the tip of her finger
and smears it across my eye. I smell her spit,
its lunchbox comfort. Blink of cinnamon gum
and ethanol. The room pumps warm-blooded
and smears it across my eye. I smell her spit,
its lunchbox comfort. Blink of cinnamon gum
and ethanol. The room pumps warm-blooded
with music, beats heavy against the
My Mother is Singing Her Seed Song & Generic Erosion
My Mother is Singing Her Seed Song
over my brother’s body
buried with the row crops. Goodbye, little century,
little song cut through pain, a bird in the dark.
Too thin, I say to myself. Whose genes?
Too thin …
I Need to Have the Name for Everything
Madeline Allen is an MFA student at Florida State University. Her work has been featured in Poetry Online and The Shore, where her work was nominated for Best of the Net in 2024.…
Chaperones
I grow wild within me as I drive. This means to the hospital. These are my days of blood, so I go there. I mean my parents found me ankle deep in bleach. Sanitizing everything like I feared we’d all …
Burning Season
Let me tell you about the summer the devil came to town. Not with a clatter of hooves or the ramming of horns, but unnoticed, slipping through cracks in the earth where a harvest had once been planted. He breathed …
Revenge Body
It is 2024. I am two months postpartum, and I am the least thin I have ever been. I am soft and hollow after pregnancy, as shapeless and deflated as my stability ball which, once taut enough to support my …
