Readers' Poems
Content Warning: violence, bones, dark themes
Jared Beloff – Sasquatch salvages the edible ruins
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fire fuses tinder to the ash it must become: a ring of plastic cinched to the neck. grain and gravel marrow to the sinew. I wade through foam, an edible ruin. this hunger hides bone, my skin the only organ left to gather history’s fold, count each rib, measure its expanse against the pressure of the tide. what cannot be saved must change. what will not remain buried resurfaces in bloom.
Jared Beloff is a teacher and poet who lives in Queens, NY with his wife and two daughters. You can find his work in Contrary Magazine, Rise Up Review, Barren Magazine, Bending Genres, The Shore and elsewhere. He is the editor of the Marvel inspired poetry anthology, Marvelous Verses. His work was nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize for 2021. In his off time he dreams of giant squid roaming the deep and at times he believes himself to be a descendent of a tender Sasquatch. Twitter @Read_Instead
Artwork: Edible Ruins by Laurie Marshall
Laurie Marshall is a writer and artist working in Northwest Arkansas. Recent stories have been awarded the 2021 Lascaux Flash Fiction Prize, included in the 2022 Bath Flash Fiction Award anthology, and nominated for Best Small Fictions 2022. She reads for Fractured Lit and Longleaf Review. Words and art have been published in Emerge Literary Journal, Versification, Bending Genres, Twin Pies Literary, Fictive Dream and Flash Frog among others. Connect on Twitter @LaurieMMarshall.