Nightmare Magazine, Issue 133 (October 2023) by Wendy N. Wagner

Author:Wendy N. Wagner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Adamant Press
Published: 2023-09-30T15:45:46+00:00

©2023 by David Janisch.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Janisch is a writer whose work is forthcoming to Nightmare Magazine. As a child, he loved to carry around a can of spinach believing if needed, it could turn him into Popeye.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

when you see the dead

Frances Ngo | 215 words

* * *

CW: Animal death.

* * *

I’ve often worked in natural history collections where it was my job to convert roadkill into museum specimens. So everyone who knew me (my sister, romantic partner, friends) would enthusiastically text me about dead animals they found! I wrote this poem in 2021 when I considered that even after someone breaks up with me, they’ll probably see dead things and remember me from time to time.

—FN

I was an invocation—

spoken over

scatter-shot owl

pellets, fragments of bone;

I know you

must see me in the dead

fawn half-eaten,

scraped raw

by catamounts.

my name etched in shrew

jaws, small mammal skulls

found

toothless;

a dove’s

full-chested keel

marooned

at the crosswalk.

I know you remember

the deftness of my

fingers

wire and wet,

threading life

into cotton-heart

birds,

hands reinventing

the cinch

mouth

of weasels.

in every dead thing now,

you must remember

my love

of such gifts

once-given.

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