by Audrey T. Carroll

1.

satisfying soft shell symphony
of exoskeletons gently guided
by cupped palm—less waiting
for an offered sacrifice
sanctioned by another,
more a hand gathering
water at a stream

2.

the opposite of a cat call
is a finch singing at you
as you fill a bronze bowl with seed;
they come to recognize the vague
shape of your body, signatures
of you that do not always
seem to signify

3.

spider silk crone’s hairs
craggy as a cliffside,
i n v i s i b l e
except in the right light,
and you must be looking for them,
like trying to find a seam
in the morning dark:
bumps of ugly monster stitching inside,
flat clean edges outside,
having to trust nothing
but the tenderness of your own flesh
to lead you

Audrey T. Carroll (she/they) is the author of What Blooms in the Dark (ELJ Editions, 2024), The Gaia Hypothesis (Alien Buddha Press, 2024), Parts of Speech: A Disabled Dictionary (Alien Buddha Press, 2023), and In My Next Queer Life, I Want to Be (kith books, 2023). Her writing has appeared in Lost Balloon, CRAFT, JMWW, Bending Genres, and others. She is a bi/queer/genderqueer and disabled/chronically ill writer. She serves as a Fiction Editor for Chaotic Merge Magazine and Editor-in-Chief of Genrepunk Magazine. She can be found at AudreyTCarrollWrites.weebly.com and @AudreyTCarroll on Twitter & Instagram.