Hey Placenta

when your throat gums together 
your gums throat some new sound

hey placenta
do you flick scabs of candle wax 
off the ermine
icing shatter 
like a snow cyst
find me a vase in the mud

hey placenta
so the blasphemer’s connected to the hip bone
was Achilles a twink or a muscle otter
neither he was Greek

hey placenta
there’s so much shit and there’s so much horse
so much throbbing colon in the stall
so much pelvis

so
do you dream of soft labour—
heel inserts, shredded salami,
the atkins diet

hey placenta
throb throb hepburn throb

hey placenta heyyyyyy

A Playdough Symposium: ARETE

jessicaed, two-piece suitor pattycakes a big rabbit he makes me laugh mood ringed, sissyfist frowns at his big toe. aubergine again? two-piece suitor dilates sissyfist into his pupil if you puke after head does that count as birth? sissyfist fists a shrug, a shrug like the one Orion gave when the scorpion asked to join him in the stars. like, it’s your choice if you want to come, not mine! freckling, two-piece suitor stews inside his pumpkin, waiting for the tan to hit like your pretty little toe ring between his thumbs, sissyfist rolls his eyes. guess any ring’s a toe ring cuz my fingers slim like bird bones. ostrich egged, two-piece suitor plaits sissyfist’s loose fingers into radishes. who’s your napkin when the stains stop?    

Jillian A. Fantin (they/them) is a poet with roots in Sheffield, Alabama, and Texas. They are the founder and editor-in-chief of RENESME LITERARY (@RenesmeLiterary), the recipient of a 2021 Poet Fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and the 2022 Mitchell Award from the Notre Dame Creative Writing Department. Jillian’s work is published in or forthcoming from The American Journal of Poetry, TIMBER, Barrelhouse, HAD, Harpur Palate, Dream Pop, and elsewhere.