Bitter Herbs
by Jasmine Gray
THE WEDDING CEREMONY (AS RECORDED BY A GUEST):
I. the groom stands at the altar next to an empty space –
kidnapping the bride is an old custom
II. kneeling in prayer
both parties wear a headpiece,
made entirely of one piece of string
III. each lover leans forward, touching wrists
drinking wine, mixing blood
IV. they take it in turn to testify
themselves before the gods
V. the village place myrtle flowers in the bride’s hair
VI. she opens her eyes as the shaman presents a concoction:
wheat, pepper, salt, bitter herbs, water
VII. his honey, sweet love
she drinks to the dissolution of her purity
VIII. the bride’s father places his daughter’s head inside a bucket of milk
uses a ladle to spoon salt into her mouth
please note: white garments conceal black intentions
IX. she tosses her head back, howling
throws flowers into the air
X. in the moonlight, the groom sees his own face
XI. fingers raised, the pair are ready to transform
plates break
a shard’s kiss
vena amoris
XII. onlookers, pull at the bride’s dress and skin
scalp-clumps waved above heads like accolades
bone-ivory flesh offered to the sky
XIII. hot oil poured down necks
chanting rituals, intense, rhythmic music –
they’re in love they’re in love
XIV. Remove the gold from his sole
our groom digests our bride –
parasitic twins
THE WEDDING CEREMONY (AS RECORDED BY THE COUPLE):
gravel embedded in our kneecaps we bend and spit into graves
a joint offering
underground
A cell of glass a hex of sleep
by Jane Burn
one ill wish its bitter spell whispered into a first bite
of rosy flesh meant to spoil be a sweet crypt
she in apparent doom rests crystal kept no blood
no fear no blush a mask of winter settled there instead
poison made its home inside her throat her lips become
unsmiling closed upon a mouldy curse seeping
her polluted bones the forest sheds a weake of leaves
and everything is changed by grief and even now she must
be owned be claimed be his he carried in her tomb away
craved to be the first to kiss her well blinked and said
how beautiful she stays though she is dead!
beneath the sheer a trace of life hints its journey
across her skin a tiny mist of breath
blooms like a rose on the pane above her head
A Cure for Salt Marsh Loss and Degradation
by K. Blair
She wades through the salt braided river, back bent like the slow sloping decline of the marsh to the mud flats. She hefts the sack higher on her shoulder, notes the crack of one shoulder blade, ignores it like she’s ignoring the tightness in her calves. It is not hard to find the resting place if you know where to look. The tide takes all burdens, save those reserved for the fens. Washing away verses preserved in the brined silt. She sets the sack between her feet, stretches up, up, up until her muscles cease their whining. Her body feels brackish; scurvy grass instead of sea lavender. She kneels in annual blite, removes the body from the sack piece by piece. It is a jumbled mess she will not bring order to. She sets up the candles, coral red hair horizontal in the wind. If you have enough faith, candles tend to light themselves. She says the prayers by rote, watches the mire rise to claim its offering. The fingers are the last to disappear, a lingering lovers’ plea to walk along the sands hand in hand. The candles extinguish themselves as she collects them. She hefts the sack onto the opposite shoulder, before heading out deeper into the washes, the sun setting like a life buoy behind her.
Jasmine Gray is a Northern writer and Writing Squad graduate with words in The Book of Bad Betties (Bad Betty Press, 2021), Tilt (Open Eye Gallery, 2021) and The Double Negative (2021). Her debut poetry pamphlet, Let’s Photograph Girls Enjoying Life, is published with Broken Sleep Books (2019). In 2022, she was shortlisted for the Edge Hill MA Short Story Prize.
Jane Burn is a Pushcart/Forward Prize nominated, award-winning, working class, bi, neurodivergent poet, artist, essayist and author of non-traditional scholarly papers (one to be published in 2022 by Persona Studies). Her poems are widely published. Jane is documenting her neurodivergent/hybrid writing practice, funded by Arts Council England. Her latest collection, Be Feared, is published by Nine Arches Press.
K. Blair (they/she) is what happens when a femme fatale breaks out of the confines of the film reel she was trapped in. Find them on your local silver screen, on Twitter: @WhattheBlair | Instagram: @urban_barbarian, and their website, www.kblair.co.uk.