Content Warning: gore, dark themes

Angel Rosen - Superstition

I am bad luck profoundly articulated. That’s right,

I get twenty-two every time. I am a fifty-dollar bill

split in half, I am the salt over your shoulder

that turns into someone else’s heart attack.

I am a walked-through ladder that

a bride tips over

when her groom walks in and sees the dress,

the ladder strikes a mirror,

which cracks in thirteen places,

a black cat cuts its tongue on the glass,

lapping up spilt milk.

Friday opens an umbrella in their attic.

Rain never comes, but the sky falls in

six-hundred-and-sixty-six pieces.

For a cure,

I bludgeon a rabbit for its foot,

I eat sixteen clover leaves,

I put my body through

the wood chipper, knock, knock.

Luck starts at birth.

Investigate the full moon, investigate Mercury.

There is no bad astronomy.

Angel Rosen (she/her) has work forthcoming with Gutslut Press, Evoke and Olney. I've been writing for two decades, trying to unburden my enormity.

Photograph by Mathew Harrison

Photographer Mathew Harrison brings his love of the natural world to his photographic work. A member of the Royal Photographic Society, he has an exhibition of his work at The Yorkshire Arboretum in November. With his other hat on he works with a team leading one of North Yorkshire's most respected and ethically driven visitor attractions. You can say hi to Mathew on Twitter @iphotomat