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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
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      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
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  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
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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
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Masthead
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  • Features
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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • 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
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
      • Jezzelle Kellam Fall 2022
      • Irina Greciuhina Fall 2022
      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
      • Mark Yale Harris Fall 2022
      • Amy Nelder Fall 2022
      • Bette Ridgeway Fall 2022
      • Ursula Sokolowska Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
      • Lisa Ampleman Fall 2022
      • Will Cordeiro Fall 2022
      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
      • Peter O'Donovan Fall 2022
      • Mackenzie Carignan Fall 2022
      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
      • Barbara Saunier Fall 2022
      • Chad Weeden Fall 2022
      • Nick Rattner Fall 2022
      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
      • Summer J. Hart Fall 2022
      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
      • Liz Robbins Fall 2022
      • john compton Fall 2022
      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
      • Rachel Reynolds Fall 2022
      • Kimberly Ann Priest Fall 2022
      • Annie Przypyszny Fall 2022
      • Konstantin Kulakov Fall 2022
      • Nellie Cox Fall 2022
      • Jennifer Martelli Fall 2022
      • SM Stubbs Fall 2022
      • Joshua Bird Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
      • Otis Fuqua Fall 2022
      • Hannah Harlow Fall 2022
      • Natalia Nebel Fall 2022
      • Kate Maxwell Fall 2022
      • Helena Pantsis Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
      • Courtney Ludwick Fall 2022
      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022