Size / / /

They dive to the drowned city
Dive at Lauds and Vespers
Down to the lost cathedral
St. Florian of Inundations
St. Michael of the Depths
They come for the glossolalia
Of the tongueless bells

The peal divers trap
That mute polyphony
In the cage of their ribs
In the nacre of their hearts
And then ascend
To shouts and acclamations
And kneel, to let the golden ax
Split wide their chests
That the silent, holy song
May flood the land.




Francesca Forrest has lived near the coast of Dorset, England, and by a bamboo grove in Japan, but has spent the last ten years within walking distance of the Quabbin Reservoir, in Massachusetts. Her short stories and poems hide out in various corners of the Internet. For more about her and her work, see her LiveJournal.
Current Issue
25 Mar 2024

Looking back, I see that my initial hope for this episode was that the mud would have a heartbeat and a heart that has teeth and crippling anxiety. Some of that hope has become a reality, but at what cost?
to work under the / moon is to build a formidable tomorrow
Significantly, neither the humans nor the tigers are shown to possess an original or authoritative version of the narrative, and it is only in such collaborative and dialogic encounters that human-animal relations and entanglements can be dis-entangled.
By: Sammy Lê
Art by: Kim Hu
the train ascends a bridge over endless rows of houses made of beams from decommissioned factories, stripped hulls, salvaged engines—
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