Now available from Carrion Bloom Books

 

 

 

Southern Gothic County Dispatch

 

we are originals: the birthplace of fetishization
uncopied unmediated

eat us & you eat the actual body of Christ
the whole body flesh & sinew & intestines

yes you must consume Christ’s earwax
his knuckle hair

& yes—

his inner thigh already marred
by vampiric teethmarks

two little dots neatly aligned
in the smallest constellation

to touch us is to touch excavation
to expose all that which you freely plunder

we are not made of decaying animal bones
or pollen or dusty charcoal

we are not made of those tiny fish skeletons
or the finer details of auguring

we are of course made of holy water
& the thin padding on church pews

but we will never be made of red ink
or clean air or that ache in your femur

we are too fleshed for resistance
too ripe for the plucking

too blooded
too bright & dead & beautiful

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The World

 

you strip the coat from a hare, little cuts like bracelets severing
the ankles. smell of forest damp & nothing else. when you hang
the rabbit to drain, a whole woman falls out. her nose bleeds
giant clumps of blood like she’s been sick for too long. she
wipes it on her arm leaving dense streaks of the world behind.
you take the pelt she offers, thumbing the softness. she grows
clothes from the forest—leaves & hickory shells & gemstones
shivering up her body, a thousand ants fading into rippled
fabric. she disappears into the trees, blending & becoming. you
try to follow but nothing. you take the pelt home & hang it
above the mantel, smooth the dry fur against your cheek &
imagine the taste of fleshed earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every Octopus Is A Planet

 

who are we but daughters who pretended for so long we were
sons, who wrapped thick banana leaves around our chests,
who stretched our spines & nearly drowned in every gumpond,
who touched our breasts in secret plucking all the hidden small
curves of our bodies, who pried open our windows, who
floated in jagged whisper to the broken glass & clumps of mud
wasps, who traced the letters of our names on the ceiling for
years after we lingered softspace in the solarium of peeled
snakeskin, in a fury of light, the taste still rough on our tongues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Girls

 

usually when we write letters we speak to the past
but we forget what it means to lick our wounds

we whisper our own ribs into our bodies
we use the words lightning, thimble, ache

we hope we find what we want
a wish or a spell or a revelation

our rivering sucks out our lungs & turns plastic to paper
we’re tired so we say what we mean

& when we say our skin is paper we mean it’s peeling away
folding up into neat little bloody scrolls

slivers made from space-rocks or some other
galaxy or some other stagnant water

we lyric away our own names & think ourselves ancient
slimdark canyons or the sharp whistles of plastic flyswats

with love & without,

your precious iridescent beetle shells

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oceanography & Other Marital Bloodsports

 

sweep us in with thoroughness
so we may sing among a host of women
who could never find their fathers

lock us in a crate of winded foxes
their mouths open & panting
loud as windmills
their cabbage blossom chests
still gaped with blood sport

we’ve learned the swamp is a memory
everything pickled
beneath the green skim on top

carry us down to the ocean
in a diesel truck
one of those that scatters crows
when you turn the ignition
that sharp smell tunneling behind us

we won’t be able to stop ourselves
from whispering louder than god

saltwash the bliss & plums
from our mouths until our gums bleed

do what you will to these pith bodies
because it’s true: to mutate is to live

& if you’re anxious about the salt
lining our teeth or our scourged rot
flesh—if you fear the way grackles
nestle in our blistered hair

you can leave this instant
you can bury yourself in the sand
& marry your clotted mermaid tail
you can mantle your neck with shark teeth
& wish they were your own

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hannah V Warren is a doctoral student at the University of Georgia where she studies speculative fiction and poetry, and she holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Kansas. Hannah’s writing and research interests focus on the grotesque, post/apocalypse, and representations of monstrosity. She is the author of the chapbooks Southern Gothic Corpse Machine (Carrion Bloom Books, 2022) and  [re]construction of the necromancer won Sundress Publications’ 2019 chapbook contest, and her works appear in Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, Passages North, The Pinch, Strange Horizons, THRUSH, and Fairy Tale Review, among others. Twitter: @hannahvwarren