I walked into the overgrowth and saw the mammals that I would become. I was minute and gargantuan. I was pinkly born but full of tooth and tail. I was slick and sluggish. Five seconds later I grew fur under my skin, talons, and a third eyelid that gave me night vision. Then I waited to be carved out inside or cut down nearby. Thunder claps sent the marmosets scampering. The earth, now immovable, with only my four feet treading on it. The people left behind wore their person suits. I made my spell in the overgrowth: a shredding suit, tongue of man, tongue of lamb, iguana claws, featherless soup, shared labor. What lies beneath a stopped-up heart? A deer shirt, a hare shirt, a man suit. My extra special ingredients: cream, foresight, jam pulp, grain seeds. The stag stumbles, disappears forever. I grew a beard overnight. No tools, the toast: too cheerful.
Author Bio:
Jennifer MacBain-Stephens first attempts into writing began when she wrote notes to her mother from her room when she was mad. (Dear mom, I do not think it is fair that I cannot watch the scary movie with Sean. I am sure that I am old enough. Please write back. Love, Jenny) She loves writing and poetry because she still uses it to make sense of her thoughts and feelings and she also has a short attention span. She is influenced by girly things, science, scary forests, and then mixing all of that together sometimes. She went to NYU but now considers the Midwest home. She has been published in such places as: Superstition Review, Emerge Literary Journal, Red Savina Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Burningwood Literary Journal, The Apeiron Review, Star 82 Review, Thirteen Myna Birds, Rufous City Review, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Gravel Magazine, Sein und Werden, The New Poet, Menacing Hedge, Sassafras Literary Magazine, The Missing Slate, Iowa City’s 2013 Poetry in Public Project and others. She was recently nominated for Best of the Net. She likes cooking new dishes and then forcing people to eat them and she also likes getting dirty outside in various capacities.
Author Bio:
Jennifer MacBain-Stephens first attempts into writing began when she wrote notes to her mother from her room when she was mad. (Dear mom, I do not think it is fair that I cannot watch the scary movie with Sean. I am sure that I am old enough. Please write back. Love, Jenny) She loves writing and poetry because she still uses it to make sense of her thoughts and feelings and she also has a short attention span. She is influenced by girly things, science, scary forests, and then mixing all of that together sometimes. She went to NYU but now considers the Midwest home. She has been published in such places as: Superstition Review, Emerge Literary Journal, Red Savina Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Burningwood Literary Journal, The Apeiron Review, Star 82 Review, Thirteen Myna Birds, Rufous City Review, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Gravel Magazine, Sein und Werden, The New Poet, Menacing Hedge, Sassafras Literary Magazine, The Missing Slate, Iowa City’s 2013 Poetry in Public Project and others. She was recently nominated for Best of the Net. She likes cooking new dishes and then forcing people to eat them and she also likes getting dirty outside in various capacities.
RSS Feed