Baby
Jessica Walsh

---

She met a man
who was really a cursed spindle
in a barn no one had checked

She faded into a farmhouse
thinned to brittle
bought chickens
and called them all baby

Her back her nerves her skin
burn a bonfire
in between the charms he mixed

She doesn’t wonder
how she got here
or why
her music changed
to ambient

She nods and dozes
sometimes jerking awake
when cigarette burns to skin
She drags her eyes across a field
and mutters baby to someone

~

Jessica Walsh is the author of two collections, How to Break My Neck (originally published in 2015; to be re-issued by Black Magic Media in 2018) and Banished (forthcoming, Red Paint Hill). Her work has appeared in journals including Tinderbox, White Stag, Whale Road Review, and more. She has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, Bettering the Net, and Best New Poets. She took up archery last year and is enthusiastically bad at it, so be careful.

84.3/4