spring 2018
Table of Contents
Return to Home PageWet Parable Duck Carver Nathan Curnow
Naming Cow Field Danielle Hanson
The Path Discoverer Taylor Bond
Push Armamentarium Adrienne Gruber
He Ring Liar's Dice Confluence Derek Thomas Dew
Trump As a Fire Without Light #665 Darren C. Demaree
Dear Chepe Wilbur Melissa Weiss
Synonyms For Shelter Jill Talbot
First Ultrasound Second Ultrasound Stephanie Yorke
Cracked Fabergé Egg Of Yes Lauren Turner
an understanding Natasha Zarin
Ice Skating in Holland Carol Hamilton
Sea Room / The Adrift Exhibit / Queer Lynx Joseph Spece
Never the Desired Absence Nick Alti
Like André Derain David R. Dixon
Grim Reaper in Therapy Brandon Marlon
drowning man is not a superhero Aidan Chafe
Armamentarium
Safety in tools is
required when the pelvis
deforms from rickets.
Decapitators,
symphysis knives, levers. Crude
hooks. The ribcage may
have malformed from the
corset. L-shaped blunt grapnel.
Pincers. The fetus
insists on brute force.
Spooned oblong with the vectis,
forceps for leverage.
Ingest laxatives.
Compress the skull, wrench tissue.
This will work in a
dystocial pinch. Make
sure you douche to drain toxins.
Babies who do not
come easily lack
a vital spirit. Pray to
the higher power.
The one with pure gall.
Speed is of the essence to
relieve this burden.
Cephalotribe; the
cranium perforator
of our frenetic
time. Then, Chamberlen
Forceps; the Granddaddy of
all obstetric tools.
Fenestrated blades,
their rounded edges. Word is
the Japanese use
an apparatus
of nets and whale bone. The French
stab the skull with a
poker, dismember
and purge. Pre-mutilation,
midwife squirts holy
water up the birth
canal by syringe. We ooze
female. Laudable
pus. In utero
baptism before the babe’s
noxious invasion.
Vermin can crawl up
the gaping hole. Crochet hook
is angled and lost
in the womb. Curettes
remove placenta. Inside
a fistula weeps.
A pessary is
required. Prepare yourself for
structural support.
In the end we must
master the way to wrench a
spook; quick like a milk
bunny. Even in
malignancy, another
babe is born. Atoned.