Writing

Sunsets in Cotanique were like bathing in orange juice. From university hill, and the scrubby red mountains draped as they were with the fraying edge of the city, the whole bay and spar were visible. The spar itself was enrobed by the red sun, a thin line in the far distance piercing through. Wreathing this torch were pearls, and peaches, and dripping pomegranates, and layers and shades of cloud growing outwards from the setting sun like hungry roots. Shafts of crepuscular br

Drowning in it Each of the white flowers that fall from my bed Each of them fringed around my pillow for a time I couldn’t even look at them all Such gauze and framing Like I was to be laid out tableside Window warmth spilled in And I wanted you to hit me Water me, flowers beside, so as to deservedly drown Tied into so many knots as the wet wicker porch furniture I was so sick then When the sun rose I would wash And make coffee, and be your perfect little Pictureframe pr

Lana thought it had been a long time since she was here last, watching the dawn light splash out to sea and break over the Spar. It really hadn’t, only a year or two since her last research visit. Still, the spar and the enormous space elevator at its end featured so heavily in her dissertation that it haunted her nightly. It had been a year since she defended her thesis and moved on to greater things. Greater things like escorting a Spider postdoc to the university, appare

Military Dream Tell me again what was overheard Through the door they forced open: Seeing the flesh within As boot heels scraped down dusty ramparts. It was an army man, as fake and plastic As any spine that bends so When men flex their fake and plastic hands. And there were the most beautiful dresses I’ve ever seen: they were crumpled up hastily under the cot— Each of us unmoored and sweaty without knowing why, Waking from the dream and thinking in your Big dog brain Was

Growing Fur When all of the little raindrop moments shed From my human skin like starlike shimmering– It seems that it’s always night when you and I meet– I turned thirty. Already I was seeing the future again, Between your lips, reluctant sometimes, Other times parted on me by your devouring teeth. I saw the fuzzy shapes of animal love. On those winter mornings, fog thick enough to obscure the houses but not the tops of trees, we came close enough To see the outlines of ea

A short story by Willow Beaudet The First Night When Dolicker sat by the fire with me and dropped a burning twig into the ceremonial plate, the air grew lush with spice. The whole trip he had been telling stories, he and his pikemen retelling fables up even the steepest climbs. It had been four whole days of tales and gossip, Dolicker himself identifying plants and pointing out cloud formations, this man or that telling the stories of their scars. I had seen the passion in th