‘in the glitter-open black' — poetry by Fox Henry Frazier

Born Peacock-Wingéd in a Smokeless Fire, He Said

Remember when you were nineteen and so
whiskey-drunk one night that you lost
consciousness while screwing your
long glitter-pink almond nails into clay-
brick earth? Remember, now, the wet
dirt and cut grass on your face
in the dark, welcome as you attempted
fusion? Because you knew that release
meant you would fall off the face of your
home, plummet hapless into sky? Remember
how it felt in your body: memory
inexplicable étoilée etiolated dive gathering
velocity through icy dust, fireballs floating
past your supine form, stripped of its weight
in life? Stygian pitch painful incipient
itch like calcified wisdom breaking
through skin on your back now you are flying
in the glitter-open black. Smile. There
it is. Remember, darling, you can still let go.

---

Author’s note on this POSSESSION-themed poem:

(content note: suicidal ideation)

One one level, this poem uses the metaphor of clinging to the earth and the possibility of letting go and falling off into the sky, to explore the spiritual and intellectual temptation of following a Dark Angel and his whispers to adopt new ideas, new morality, to break away from the life the speaker has spent decades building with constant struggle, sacrifice, self-restraint, empathy. Instead of embracing the often thankless work of keeping her heart open, the speaker feels tempted by the idea to leave it all behind and embrace hedonism and self-prioritization and the satisfaction of her personal desires — a moral paradigm that she thinks might very well culminate in being literally possessed by darker forces. TLDR: it's Thomasin, being asked if she'd like to live deliciously. On another level, however, the poem can be read as the temptation to more literally, physically let go of the world — to go flying off the face of the earth by committing suicide. The temptation to surrender to a more metaphorical kind of possession, to give up and let oneself be overtaken by the dark forces in this world that can make remaining present here feel difficult. The dark forces are continuously whispering reminders that she can choose to give up any time, that this possibility will never really leave her.

---

Fox Henry Frazier is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer from upstate New York. Her third full-length poetry collection, Break Blow Burn, is forthcoming from White Stag Publishing in 2026. Her debut novel, Francesca, is forthcoming in 2027.

'poet as tarantula, poem as waste' — poetry by Ewen Glass

Poet as Tarantula

Silken syllables of protein from what is ingested,
trauma in other words, other words in other words,
little spilled in spinning.

Born from undersides, a certain kind of discretion,
until there it is, wind juddered and fine; wing-spans,
attention-spans,

be-shortened by buzz and other glittered things.
Dodging everyday thermals, they wisely fly past
poet as tarantula,

poem as waste.

---

Author’s note on this POSSESSION-themed poem:

What would possess you to be a poet?

---

Ewen Glass is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and a body of self-doubt; his poetry has appeared in the likes of Okay Donkey, Maudlin House, HAD, Poetry Scotland and One Art Poetry. Bluesky/X/IG: @ewenglass

'my god wearing a body' — poetry by Tom Nutting

Devotional

after Cyparissus

I loved the way he looked
and never flinched.
Only came closer,
ate from my hand.

And never flinched –
softly as velvet.
Ate from my hand,
shook droplets of life.

Softly as velvet,
the wound opened.
Shook droplets of life –
still, I touched.

The wound opened,
my god wearing a body.
Still, I touched –
I learnt violence.

My god wearing a body,
begged to cry forever:
I learnt violence.
I refuse to become a man.

Begged to cry forever:
called it becoming.
I refuse to become a man –
instead, rooted down
where no blade can follow.
Only ceaseless sap-flow,
tears moved by lyric
killing of a gift.

---

Sympoiesis

He thought it began in the dark: wood, room.
A glance, touch, withdrawal – brief weight of heat.

But he was already inside me.

Not love exactly,
but the rhythm that comes
before love takes
as rootlets move towards music.

He looked outward:
silver chain, mouth pressed to bark,
the body passed between shadows –

even then, we were
exchanging ourselves:
salt, sweat & microbial syntax –
gestures without names.

He said trade.
More like a loss.

I was sovereign,
loved the light on my skin.
But then this folding
into forest.
Not forced,
not quite asked for.
A pulse
offered up.

Nothing taken
without giving
in return.

My body began to learn
him slowly, as lichen
comes to know
its layers
interbeing.

Now he lingers
in my breath,
perspiration behind my knees,
dust residue on my brow.

Do I stay still
in his mouth
before language returns?

I search for borders
in the canopy
but find no shyness now
– sky and leaves indistinct.

We are still making –
enfolding the possibility
of touch changing
us irrevocably.

---

Drag me out, destroy me

after Florence Welch

I

I learned your name in the way of trees
learning wind – by breaking, over & over
until strong, or at least a belief in strength.

You spoke & the air turned to shimmer;
each word a shard I could draw blood with
in the absence of your feeling. I built you

in the dark that slow way: trembling piece
by piece – vessel, salt, breath. You looked
at me & believed me your passive reflection.

Desire came so easily; if only a body could
open, too, like prayer through destruction. 

II

Shame arrived quick – soft
wing of a dying bird. A sin,
you called it, wanting easy
unmaking of the night we’d
already burned clean through. 

Each mirror fogged, refusing
our image at your command.
Still, I kept turning your voice
rich in my mouth, savouring 

even as it soured: love became
don’t tell. I would never; could
barely breathe for my wanting.

III

Some morning came eventually, dully
merciless, as white sheets ash-smeared
by the scorching of your body – incense
I buried myself in, writhing heart, before
I took it all to the garden & let the rain
decide what stayed. I came to learn how

it was never just you – it was the wanting
itself that hollowed me out. Now, the soil
thrums where I knelt: something shifting
like forgiveness or forgetting? No, small
animal of lust, returning to me. Please.

---

Author’s note on this POSSESSION-themed poem:

‘Devotional’ came to me when I considered possession; I wrote the poem some time ago whilst I was foraging for queerness in classical myth, its pantoum echoing the recursive ache between boy, deer, & god. ‘Sympoeisis’ borrows Haraway’s making-with as part of my larger hymn to entanglement & the slow recognition that no body moves alone. Lastly, the theme (inevitably?) summoned Florence; her lyric 'Drag me out, destroy me' seized a feral old memory of a particularly ruinous possession, which I invoked, then wrested into form. 

---

Tom Nutting (he/they) is a writer and psychiatrist from Bristol, UK. He writes on queer ecologies, activism, and mental illness. He is currently reading for a masters in creative writing at Oxford where he was shortlisted for the Starkie prize. He won the Lisa Thomas prize and his writing has appeared in Magma, The Stinging Fly, fourteen poems, ORB, Blue Bottle Journal, BJPsych, The Hopper, and elsewhere. As an NHS doctor, he supports people with severe mental illness, is conducting research into nature-based care, and also volunteers with Medical Justice.

'Hours rot away in regalia' — poetry by Stephanie Chang

Self-Portrait as a Scarecrow

Dawn the brighter mouth. Blue-brown
crucifix in patchwork. Here, faces

flower by the thousands, populate the
coppered washed days, the nothing-night,

each pistil parallel to its purpose. I stare
the evening soft, coax the oil out of

midnight’s lamp. Hours rot away
in regalia. The loud dark comes quickly:

Crows christen themselves in my sight
unafraid. Little thieves rustle underfoot.

Now and then my harvest gleams gold
with laughter. Now and always, I am

helpless, holding a lantern
like a breath. How this town

mocks the memory of another town
the way spit sticks to the air, searching

for a moment of permanence: sound
to the soles of your feet. A freshly bobbed

apple between a lover’s teeth, taking home
first prize at the county fair. For once,

for me? I picture, still, the cider you spilled
on the woodman’s axe, the pumpkin bloomed

just wrong, moon through rain reeking
of bad wine, every leaf undressed by wind

wet with white sheets, every spirit
unambiguous. There, something with wings

watching us from the hayloft. Colors
most cruel at our world’s end—turn

them upside-down. Tangled. I wish
my body into warp and want and

morning, mourning, morning.

---

Author’s note on this POSSESSION-themed poem:

I've always loved autumn the most of all the seasons; it's when I feel my every step watched by forces lurking beyond the field, in the forests and hills that paraded around my fondest childhood memories. A scarecrow is a staple in the landscape of fall, possessed by the gazes of others who enter its purview liminally, before they leave and the scarecrow once again possesses nothing but an eye on time. I wrote this poem listening to the Over the Garden Wall soundtrack, thinking of cinnamon and apple cider and the pumpkins carved in all my years' Halloweens and Samhains. Possession can be thought of as an intrusive act. Here, it's greedy and wanting, walloping. To be possessed by something is to know it so unbearably it becomes you. What is a scarecrow's deepest want? How does it necessarily differ from mine? A scarecrow sees all but can do nothing. Of course its want must be monstrous.

---

Stephanie Chang (she/they) is a Brooklyn-based writer, art historian, and witch. A 2025 Lambda Literary Fellow, her work appears or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Adroit Journal, Kenyon Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and Sixth Finch, among others. She has a chapbook forthcoming from Palette Poetry in early 2026.

'down down down the hall of mirrors' — poetry by Ronnie K. Stephens

THE MUSEUM OF BROKEN THINGS

after Rachel McKibbens

step through the turnstile and bear witness / bear witness to the unbearable / the unbearable begins with a field of strawberries / a field of strawberries emptying their red red hearts / their red red hearts empty onto the hillside / the hillside and the strawberries and the boy break open / the boy breaks open mouthed and flying / open mouthed and flying the boy kisses rusted steel soft / rusted steel soft and savage toothed / savage toothed gears rattle a cigarette boat still / a cigarette boat still as a grave in the backyard / a grave in the backyard for the tip of the knife / the tip of the knife and the ankle fracture / the ankle fractures against the pavement / the pavement leads to a water warped picture bible / picture bibles for all the kids on the day of baptism / on the day of baptism a limp wristed wave / a limp wristed wave and the cold slap of a truck door / a truck door slaps shut and the gear shift punches down / down down down the hall of mirrors / the hall of mirrors laughs / itself to sleep

---

Author’s note on this POSSESSION-themed poem:

I chose this poem for Possession because it was, for me, an exercise in seeing how I both possess and am possessed by anxieties directly tied to formative memories from my childhood. A memory palace of sorts, but more funhouse than reality, each memory reflected indefinitely, distorted.

---

Ronnie K. Stephens holds a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Studies, a Master of Arts in Creative Writing, a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction, and a PhD in English. His research centers the role of poetry in subverting antiethnic and anti-LGBTQ legislation affecting public education. He is the author of three books: Universe in the Key of Matryoshka, They Rewrote Themselves Legendary, and The Kaleidoscope Sisters.

'Grew appendages, clawed towards light' — poetry by Lucie Brooks

Transubstantiation

One morning, I woke with a mouth full of stones instead of teeth. Then my skin turned pale pink, from soft and warm to cool and hard. My mouth slicked over and disappeared. Then my eyes. My body shrank. Smaller and smaller until only a polished piece of rose quartz was left atop the sheets. Later, someone – I couldn’t say who, on account of losing my eyes – found me and slipped me into her pocket. My smooth surface warmed against her thigh as we traveled around town, from the flower shop to the hospital, and every time she grew anxious, she found me again, thumb worrying my smooth side, both of us whispering it’s okay. Elsewhere, magma pushed towards the Earth’s crust. Minerals collected in the heat. A piece of rose quartz formed. Then it turned soft, stretched. Grew appendages, clawed towards light. Became girl. Covered in dirt and looking for answers.

---

author’s note on this possession-themed poem:

Many of my poems play with the concept of transformation, or becoming, which can just be another way of saying possessed. In Transubstantiation, you have the mirror possessions - the girl and the rose quartz, and the kind of force that keeps you clawing towards the light.

Lucie Brooks is a poet and professor. She is a board member of Sarabande Books, an award-winning, independent literary publishing house founded in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the 2022 Kentucky Poetry Society Chaffin/Kash poetry prize winner and a 2024 Grand Prix poetry prize finalist. Her work can be found in print and online, including in Swing, Salvation South, Catapult, and the LEON Review.

'do not be afraid' — poetry by Maia Decker

Speaking to My Mother at Twenty

I know you are nervous because you have been dreaming—
visions of the buck your lover shot and hung, of your father
burning the baby blue dresser the day you left home.
You follow the smoke west, but by the time you arrive,
ghosts live in every house. The dead play loud music
and you cannot sleep, so you find a lover who dreams.
Your new friends want happiness. They sleep three to a bed.
They want to dance. It is 1999 and the world promises
to end very soon. A woman stops you in the street and says
all the unborn babies spoke to her. They said do not be afraid.
Four thousand miles east, the dresser keeps burning.
You swim in the creek and think blue blue blue.
You stumble out the door, hand on your beating heart.
Know that when you tell your lover I am coming, he kneels.
He says do not be afraid. He says baby, let’s go west.

---

Author’s note on this POSSESSION-themed poem:

For me, poetry is a way to transmute consciousness across time and space, to be possessed by circumstances typically not our own. This piece is for my mother in her younger years; I imagine that it will somehow reach her, traveling via language from now to then.  

---

Maia Decker is a writer and teacher from Montana. She graduated in 2024 from Yale University with her BA in English and concentration in Fiction. She is interested in material histories of the West, dreams, and writing as a way to make sense of our obligations to others, dead and alive. 

'The darkened bedroom' — poetry by Jessica Purdy

Custody

Something gritty and splintered intruded between my lips; my aired out tongue. Abrasive like an emery board. A flat wood stick. I gasped and awoke. My mouth was dry as a dying child. The rain came after. And sunk the woodpile deeper into ash. As if someone from another house—an orphanage perhaps—had claimed to be my family. He ate singed spiders crisped on the hot stove. My brother. His tongue wasn’t supposed to speak our language or be near me. Cigarettes were taped to the ivied brick house. In the black I hovered out the window to blow smoke from inside my lungs up to guilty stars. Away from trouble. And the weasel slipped in and out of the room like a sheet of paper let fall from a godhand.

---

Consume

My mother home from work. Me home from school. And I was quiet so as not to wake her. The darkened bedroom. Her sweet smell and the sheets. She had been fifteen once and chased through woods by a strange man. The sticks scratched her bare legs. She taught me to use pads. In her drawer was a belted thing I’d never use. The yellowjacket found a hole and slept with me. Stung my eye. My orange cat hugged me around my neck. When I was told I was fat, my mother suggested I drink broth when hungry. With her blue hands she melted animal gelatin for my skin and nails. I was frightened of my own bed. My note box stained my fingers every time I pried it open. It had never dried after I painted it black. Words adhered to my fingerprints.

---

Author’s note on this POSSESSION-themed poem:

I wrote these poems in a gush after reading some of Marosa di Giorgio's prose poems I found online. It was so coincidental because I was researching the "necropastoral" and came across her work (or maybe it was the other way around?). I know I had heard of her work recently because Lisa Marie Basile (Luna Luna's esteemed editor) had been praising her in posts on social media. After I wrote the poems I thought to look up synonyms for "possession" and found the words "Consume" and "Custody" and thought they worked well for the titles of my poems. Thank you Lisa for introducing me to Marosa di Giorgio. I have been "possessed" by her writing. Now I'm reading her book "I Remember Nightfall" which I ordered after writing these.

---

Jessica Purdy holds an MFA from Emerson College. She is the author of STARLAND and Sleep in a Strange House (Nixes Mate, 2017 and 2018), The Adorable Knife (Grey Book Press, 2023), and You’re Never the Same (Seven Kitchens Press, 2023). Her poems and micro-fiction have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and Best Micro-Fiction. Her poetry, flash fiction, and reviews appear in Action, Spectacle, Marrow Magazine, Does It Have Pockets, On the Seawall, Radar, The Night Heron Barks, and elsewhere. She lives in Exeter, New Hampshire.

'I am the body that I am under' — poetry by Jennifer MacBain-Stephens

On Estuary #2, by Tadashi Sato

Oil on Canvas, Stanley Museum of Art, Iowa.
(rocks disrupt water)

I carry my rocks inside.
The way in, too quiet: an end, the lapping of water, a start.
A ghost story and a love story: same difference.
We like to say dead body but we never say live body.
My pressure points, repetitive, no heat; life has left this canvas:
water sputters, drowns us all, beckons the birds to visit.
Clouds leak from the summit.
I want to flee, seek out the color orange, a dry square room,
wrap this weighted blanket around someone else’s body,
so it won’t find me. I fail.
I am under the body. I sleep. I wake under the body,
I forget my temples, a gravy of detritus rapping to get in.
The gray water comes, not friend-like,
twigs, moss, water bugs, plastic, the sheer volume of it all
because: physics.
I have no natural environment.
I am a natural environment.
I am a body.
I am under a body.
I am the body that I am under.

---

Author’s note on this POSSESSION-themed poem:

Sometimes, no matter what we do, we cannot escape or get away from a feeling inside of us. The feeling possesses us. In this particular case, with this poem, the rocks represented grief to me. I've had several conversations with friends about carrying a sack of grief around with me, even while moving forward and experiencing joy, and living my life. The grief, about a relationship that ended, was always a weight I carried/carry. Next step: one friend said to create a dinner party and invite the grief to a seat at the table and have a conversation. So that is in my future!

---

Jennifer MacBain-Stephens (she/her) went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and now lives in Iowa where she is landlocked. Her fifth, full length poetry collection, “Pool Parties” is now available from Unsolicited Press. She is the author of fifteen poetry chapbooks. Some of her work appears in The Pinch, South Broadway Press, Cleaver, Zone 3, Slant, Yalobusha Review, and Grist. Find her online at http://jennifermacbainstephens.com/.