This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco (White Stag Publishing 2024).
the fourth child
in my sob-lodge / the straw mattress incants
enchantment / raises the dead from boulders
we used to cemetery our side yard/ mama
says she won’t die yet can’t / neither can i
i use my best eyes / the tears from their insides
pipe them in heart-bottles / to be worn mourned
at the neck gone noose-less or noiseless / the forest
quits while it’s beyond me / makes veils of my incisions
my sharpcuts / little mouths for ash of old
& decrepit / i accept i accept it / weeping
now in the desolate / no one has ever seen
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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