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Susan Slaviero

Police Procedural


The truth is, we already know the wolf

The bone fragments & silk stockings, trace evidence, a dead giveaway. We know how he
 fingered her mouth, her eyelids. How he waved away the bees clustered around her ear. The
 forensic narrative reveals itself in smears & spatters, unraveling in blue lamplight. It’s not about 
who, but how. Sugar-gorged, corrupted minds & teeth. This is the body, the wire. Fatal, we say.
 Morbid. The warrant asks for a stain in the shape of a smashed finch.
 Everything is coffee-colored. Recognize the signature? The peat moss. The auburn braid, a ligature. 
We’re going to tell you something about motive. It doesn’t matter. We’re 
interested in the method, the way the cuts have feathered edges, that slight twist of the neck. Find
 the girls. The almost-dead ones, their hair thinning as we speak. It’s a matter of urgency. We tell 
this to the hounds because no one else is listening.


The Feral Diaries VIII​


The Cursed Union

I am not what you expected—dragonbird, your consort, a woman irrevocably changed by fevers, charmed water, by
the kisses of monsters. I am a black dress that shatters into a
maelstrom, a squall of ravens. You disbelieve what you’ve seen.

Say a prayer, tap that knife of glass over a dry jawbone and say blackwing, badwing. Once you
marked the place where we met on the map with a bloodied heart. Can you ink away all we’ve
done? Remember the deadwalk, the banquet of mice and rabbits? You woke up with a limp frog
clamped between your teeth. There remains something of us in the wicked forest. Together, we
bury our obsidian eggs in a damp shallow and mutter an oath over the disturbed grounds. I call
you a faithless scorpion and still, you forget me.
​

Feral Diaries IX


{saving the devil woman}

Always, I dream of going back. Bramble and thorn. That place I was before you came. The solstice
lingers, a dark eye. The flavor of dirt and yeast on your tongue, that slight tang of cigarette. [ pretty
little lady
] Almond cakes. Poison rooms. The microbial air. Molasses and raw liquor, an inhalation
of something gone wrong. All I can see is tarot decks and mustaches, tumblers of ice and wine. The
curl of smoke from the corner of a man’s mouth. We’ll talk about this later. Now I want to scrub
your Rosetta stone with lye and take you back to a place without language. You’re going to thank
me, lay broken shells at my feet. Why tell me these stories of snakes and trees and unripe fruit?
Oh! I could rupture your meatpalm with a well-placed squeeze. I am more Python than red,
red apple, I promise you.
​

Notes on the Affair of the Poisons


Again, we must revisit the necessity of foretasters. Call it a sexapple, an aphrodisiac, but 
really those might be grains of powdered toad speckled around the stem. The skin splits in the 
shape of an asp and you call it divination. Be certain of your surroundings, lest your heels become 
rooted in poison waters.

Delirium. Coma. The whitening of fingernails. Gifts sent to the house of the dying. These loaves of
bread are greasy, resinous.

The woman, a study in ruby sulfur; lock her away or she’ll dissolve in sunlight. Sixteen pints 
of water will cure her, or burst her bladder. What happens to our witches stays in the chambre 
ardente. You say she made you a promise in the form of inheritance powder. Later, you rock
yourself to sleep thinking of black tongues and wasted limbs, all the layers of skin beneath her 
peeled dress.

The petrified bones of infants buried between the rows of radishes

Paint her portrait as a silhouette clutched in the talons of a winged devil. The weight of an 
ampoule in your hand.

Mercury, antimony, lead. In this you have been complicit.




​​
--
Susan Slaviero is the author of CYBORGIA (Mayapple Press). Recent chapbooks include Selections from the Murder Book (Tree Light Books), A Wicked Apple (Hyacinth Girl Press), and Apocrypha (Dancing Girl Press). She has a BA in English/Writing from Lewis University.

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  • Home
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  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
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    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
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      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
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      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
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      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
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      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
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      • Annie Przypyszny Fall 2022
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      • Joshua Bird Fall 2022
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    • Issue #25 Poetry Spring 2023 >
      • Emma Bolden Spring 2023
      • Ronda Piszk Broatch Spring 2023
      • M. Cynthia Cheung Spring 2023
      • Flower Conroy Spring 2023
      • Jill Crammond Spring 2023
      • Sandra Crouch Spring 2023
      • Satya Dash Spring 2023
      • Rita Feinstein Spring 2023
      • Dan Fliegel Spring 2023
      • Lisa Higgs ​Spring 2023
      • Dennis Hinrichsen ​Spring 2023
      • Mara Jebsen ​Spring 2023
      • Abriana Jetté ​Spring 2023
      • Letitia Jiju ​Spring 2023
      • E.W.I. Johnson ​Spring 2023
      • Ashley Kunsa ​Spring 2023
      • Susanna Lang ​Spring 2023
      • James Fujinami Moore Spring 2023
      • Matthew Murrey Spring 2023
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2023
      • Heather Qin ​Spring 2023
      • Wesley Sexton ​Spring 2023
      • Ashish Singh ​Spring 2023
      • Sara Sowers-Wills ​Spring 2023
      • Sydney Vogl ​Spring 2023
      • Elinor Ann Walker Spring 2023
      • Andrew Wells Spring 2023
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      • Marina Hope Wilson ​Spring 2023
      • David Wojciechowski Spring 2023
      • Jules Wood Spring 2023
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      • Jane Zwart Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Fiction Spring 2023 >
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      • CL Glanzing Spring 2023
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      • Jeremy T. Wilson Spring 2023
      • Richie Zaborowske Spring 2023
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      • Amanda Roth Spring 2023