This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from How to Play by Katie Manning (Louisiana Literature Press 2022).
content warning for cancer
Eldritch Horror
We hit the card
that makes us lose
half of everything:
half of our items,
spells, & clue tokens
tossed into the box.
I watch you decide
which spell to lose.
Your forehead wrinkles
remind me of our
newborn boys—
the lines easier to see
now that you’ve lost
all of your hair.
It’s been two months
since you lost half
of your testicles
and half of your
tumors. It’s been
seven weeks of
chemicals in your
blood. You roll
the dice to cast
the spell you
chose to keep.
You only need
one success.
Katie Manning is the founding editor of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. Winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award for Tasty Other, she’s the author of eight poetry collections, most recently Hereverent (Agape Editions, 2023) and How to Play (Louisiana Literature Press, 2022). Her writing has been featured on Poetry Unbound, Tangle News, Verse Daily, and many other venues. 
Joey Gould, who is Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent>Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review), while their recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Meow Meow Pow Pow, Miniskirt Magazine, & Persephone’s Fruit. They also serve as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys.
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