OFFICIAL SELECTION OF RACHEL RABBIT WHITE
dream feed /
the way your clip-wings saturned me & you nursed still sleeping—
i shell dreams like saplings. all the roses unfold salt-toxic & throat-slit,
mama at the stem & we jinx each other, say the same
thing at once. one day you’ll have words of your own
seed-steeped, milked by the curdling wax of a candle
used to summon you to the dirt-floor where i birth
you again. once upon a time, they’ll make a fortune
out of you, a palm-coil revealing the lines
of a telephone. only i know how to care for you
in the back-shed. i leave you to your spruces,
your mosquito bites—a devil’s blood to fatten
the beaded bodies & then sire the rest.
my oddity, my final child, king creature,
vampire of the pines.
Kailey Tedesco is the author of She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing), Lizzie, Speak (winner of White Stag's 2018 MS Contest), and FOREVERHAUS (White Stag Publishing). You can find her work featured in Electric Literature, Fairy Tale Review, Gigantic Sequins, The Journal, and more.
dream feed /
the prophetic child
the way your clip-wings saturned me & you nursed still sleeping—
i shell dreams like saplings. all the roses unfold salt-toxic & throat-slit,
mama at the stem & we jinx each other, say the same
thing at once. one day you’ll have words of your own
seed-steeped, milked by the curdling wax of a candle
used to summon you to the dirt-floor where i birth
you again. once upon a time, they’ll make a fortune
out of you, a palm-coil revealing the lines
of a telephone. only i know how to care for you
in the back-shed. i leave you to your spruces,
your mosquito bites—a devil’s blood to fatten
the beaded bodies & then sire the rest.
my oddity, my final child, king creature,
vampire of the pines.
Kailey Tedesco is the author of She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing), Lizzie, Speak (winner of White Stag's 2018 MS Contest), and FOREVERHAUS (White Stag Publishing). You can find her work featured in Electric Literature, Fairy Tale Review, Gigantic Sequins, The Journal, and more.