Content Warning: grief, death

Elena S. Kotsile – Two Poems

Mummified Elegy

(for my grandma Z.)

I wrap my words around my tongue as I

wrap the linen cloths around your body.

Each layer, a memory identified pain—

I mourn for you and rediscover myself.

I did I removed your eyes. I removed your

heart. I removed your womb. Now, I rub my face

with the same salt I covered your

body I’m dry with no more tears to shed.

I place over your head your favorite

carnival mask from when you were little.

Now, you’re four and jump around in your costume.

My womb throbs in my hands. My heart lies still

on the floor. My eyes see nothing but the past.

I burn incense and lay in front of me

jars with cypress, cedar, bitumen from

the Dead Sea, myrrh, resins, animal fat—

I drink them slowly, one after the other.

I taste nothing as I feel nothing.

My hands mask my face as I walk in your

funeral procession someone says something to me,

someone shoves a pill in my mouth. I only

see you, smiling your first smile—

I only hear your fading voice, mama

watch over my children.

The Taxidermist’s Apprentice

In the dim light, the taxidermist

arranges patches of human skin

in perfect order—how I envy her.

I can’t even put my memories

in order—nasty little things, scarring

my scorched mind—let alone dead skin.

Memories flow in my vessels, bloated and

stretched—will they clot my heart, suffocate

my lungs, give me a reminiscent stroke?

She died remembering what

shouldn’t remember, forgetting what

shouldn’t forget.

“Be aware,” Master says pointing at

the naked nose in front of me,

“or you’ll end up with less skin than needed.”

Like memories: stretch them

too much and you’ll miss something

imperative, like your mother’s laugh.

Elena S. Kotsile (pen name) is a scientific editor and a neurodivergent writer based in Berlin, Germany. Her creative words have appeared or are forthcoming in The Future Fire, Stadtsprachen Magazin, Fevers of the Mind, Acropolis Journal, The Bear Creek Gazette, Grim & Gilded, Air & Nothingness Press, Rabid Oak, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Greek journals and anthologies. Besides scientific articles, she writes poetry and speculative fiction in English and Greek, and she's querying for her first speculative novel. Nominated for Best of Net for my poem Theoxenia flees Thessaly (Acropolis Journal, Issue Six). Twitter: Elena S. Kotsile @Elena_Beate; Instagram: Elena Kots

Artwork: body-room by Bianca Pina

Bianca Pina is a multi-media Artist and Poet based in London. Her work encompasses many mediums including language, ink, clay, pixels, photography and illustration. As a neurodivergent Bianca works in constellations rather than with strict linear ideas. Her poetry often has an arresting, brittle quality that can be both jagged and tender and explores the complex fields of family and personal history. Bianca has completed a MA in Writing Poetry through Newcastle University & The Poetry School London. She has published a chap book titled "Artificial & Otherwise" with Good Space Gallery for their Machine Dreams exhibition. Her work can be found on www.biancapina.com and on social media @Bianca___pina