This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco (White Stag Publishing 2024).
husbandry
i felt you first glass shrapnel
sea-shelling my flesh i was a goody once
in our home well-gated no one could hear us
in aperture corners i twisted apple stems until i married
a husband from every letter of the alphabet it is here
in this churning i learned how
to let the geese bite my feeding hand bleeding
how to produce bread it is here i understand my porcelain
adornments the enamel of new lives growing
in my croning skin soon i’ll scream myself a zodiac
bruise the birthing dirt so full of pain
there won’t be any left for you
Kailey Tedesco is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, including Lizzie, Speak (winner of White Stag Publishing’s 2018 Poetry Contest). Her most recent work, MOTHERDEVIL, is out now from White Stag Publishing. She teaches courses on Gothic literature and writing and she is a member of the Horror Writers Association. Recently, her poetry placed both first & second place in the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s 2024 Speculative Poetry Contest. You can find her work in Electric Literature, Fairy Tale Review, Black Warrior Review, Epiphany Lit, The Journal, Driftwood Press, Passages North, and more. 
Layla Lenhardt is the author of the full-length poetry collection Mother Tongue (Main Street Rag 2023). She is an alumna of the Firefly Farms Residency and a member of the Sundress Reader Board. She is currently working on her second full length poetry collection Little Spoon, and she is an MFA candidate at IU.
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