Size / / /

In this false future of Nazi costumes

my friends and I wear gas masks

rendering us unrecognizable on a playgound.

We are called a wolf-pack

and you, Red, are nothing but bait

to test my sense of duty.

You resemble a young girl I knew

and failed to kill. They picked you out,

called you a terrorist, ran you ragged.

Named you her sister.

And again, as a dog returns

you know I will chase you, your basket

of weaponry, your red hood

into the darkness. You will be hurt,

and I, unable to save you,

the one to fire the shot,

unable to leave the pack,

a shadow wolf, gnawing his own leg to bone.




Jeannine Hall Gailey (jeannine.gailey@live.com) is the Seattle-area author of Becoming the Villainess (Steel Toe Books, 2006) and She Returns to the Floating World (Kitsune Books, 2011). Her work has been featured on NPR's The Writer's Almanac, Verse Daily, and in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Her website is www.webbish6.com, and you can see some of her previous work in our archives.
Current Issue
15 Apr 2024

Mnemonic skills test positive: inaccurately positive.
pallid growths like toadstools, / and scuttling many-legged things,
By: Ana Hurtado
Art by: delila
I want to sink my faces into the hot spring and see which one comes out breathing. I’m hoping it’s mine.
Issue 8 Apr 2024
Issue 1 Apr 2024
Issue 25 Mar 2024
By: Sammy Lê
Art by: Kim Hu
Issue 18 Mar 2024
Strange Horizons
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Issue 5 Feb 2024
Load More
%d bloggers like this: