by Amanda McLeod
***Content warning: Rape***
Callisto
Arrogant king Zeus
noticed a woman was
tracking the hot stars
of a goddess sky,
and he translated
Callisto into a prideful
challenge
With- in
huntress Artemis skin
he took servant Callisto’s
modesty and pulled
from her belly
a new moon conversion
Artemis, seeing
what Daddy had ruined
made Callisto a bear from maiden
then ran
a bolt through her chest.
Yet, the goddess
still loved her
little bear
and Callisto became
a constellation to flicker
You Ask Me How I Am but Never Wait for an Answer
Hello
It is our weekly phone call. Last week you wound me in stories of
how well my brother is doing at his new job, slinging plastic
around a pallet. A spider assembling meals. The waves of pride so
violent they threatened the throat and lungs of your youngest sling.
This week you tell me you’re evicting him. But that trumpet’s been
blowing for twenty years. The notes are ants, shriveled and stuck
to stale webs.
How are you?
Today I discovered I cannot rest with men. The severe insomnia in
my twenties was from being fingered in my sleep on three separate
occasions, proving there is no safety in numbers. But saying this
would strop the lightning in your hands. I cannot afford to bold and
underline the italics you bore me. Instead, I say I’m fine.
That’s good
Sometimes, when you go on and on about my brother or your
shingles or the dog, I sit in my car and watch leaves drip through
birch branches. Like plucked and repudiated gray hairs. Like a
damp robot. Like the water cycle of an evaporating family.
I love you
I don’t doubt you love me. The same way I don’t doubt the
pressure of the ocean floor will also crush me.
Goodbye
The Effects of Rape on the Human Body
Found poem with the substitution of “lightning” for “rape”
Like a gunshot, rape causes
both exit & entrance wound,
marking the victim.
White-hot substances
burn. Clothing shredded,
shoes & socks thrown off.
Many survivors do not
remember being struck.
The only evidence is burnt,
displaced clothing
& marks along the body.
Rape will cook brain cells,
rendering them useless.
Memory issues.
Trouble with concentration.
Severe headaches.
All of which last decades
after the initial strike.
A lifelong
struggle.
Lannie Stabile (she/her), a queer Detroiter, often says while some write like a turtleneck sweater, she writes like a Hawaiian shirt. A finalist for the 2019/2020 Glass Chapbook Series and semifinalist for the Button Poetry 2018 Chapbook Contest, Lannie’s first published collection, Masticated Darlings, is now out with Wild Pressed Books. Individual works are published/forthcoming in Frontier, Entropy, Pidgeonholes, Glass Poetry, and more. Lannie currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Barren Magazine and is a member of the MMPR Collective. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee.
Amanda McLeod is an Australian author and artist, with a penchant for wild places and quiet. Her work has appeared in many places both in print and online, and she received a 2019 Pushcart Prize nomination from Ellipsis Zine. Her work has been shortlisted in several writing prizes, and won the 2018 Marjorie Graber-McInnis Short Story Award. She is Managing Editor of Animal Heart Press.