Size / / /

I have no words

of comfort for the likes of you,

my sad, charmed boy.

Jove's bloated court echoes with snores,

yours loudest, when I wander through.

I have no words

to make my cratered form cohere:

banished hunter, raped virgin, beast.

You sad, charmed boys

think toting Chardonnay's a dream,

but Jove still fucks you in your sleep.

I have—no, words

can't compare with mouthfuls of hair

and bile. Our void has no echo,

my sad, charmed boy,

so don't ask me to conjure up

your soft grass bed. I'm all darkness,

I have no words,

O sad, charmed boy.




Melissa Frederick's poetry and prose have appeared in numerous publications, including the Mid-American Review, DIAGRAM, Astropoetica, Mythic Delirium, and Star*Line. Her poetry chapbook, She, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008.
Current Issue
25 Mar 2024

Looking back, I see that my initial hope for this episode was that the mud would have a heartbeat and a heart that has teeth and crippling anxiety. Some of that hope has become a reality, but at what cost?
to work under the / moon is to build a formidable tomorrow
Significantly, neither the humans nor the tigers are shown to possess an original or authoritative version of the narrative, and it is only in such collaborative and dialogic encounters that human-animal relations and entanglements can be dis-entangled.
By: Sammy Lê
Art by: Kim Hu
the train ascends a bridge over endless rows of houses made of beams from decommissioned factories, stripped hulls, salvaged engines—
Issue 18 Mar 2024
Strange Horizons
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Issue 5 Feb 2024
Issue 29 Jan 2024
Issue 15 Jan 2024
Issue 8 Jan 2024
Load More
%d bloggers like this: