This selection, chosen by guest editor nat raum, is from We Had Mansions by Mandy Shunnarah (Diode Editions, 2025).
nutrition facts
Specialty Communion Wafers, Gluten-Free
Calories 0
0% Daily Value
Total Fat 0 g 0%
Saturated Fat 0 g 0%
Trans Fat 0 g 0%
Omega-3 Fatty Acids 0 g 0%
Cholesterol 0 mg 0%
Sodium 0 mg 0%
Total Carbohydrate 0.5g 0%
Dietary Fiber 0 g 0%
Sugars 0.5g 0%
Protein 0.5g 0%
Calcium 0 mg 0%
Alcohol 0 g 0%
Iron 0 mg 0%
Vitamin A 0 mg 0%
Vitamin C 0 mg 0%
Genuflecting, tapping the sign
of the cross on my torso, I look
to his catholicized form—not
just the cross, but whole bloody
body, knife wounds sculpted,
weeping stigmata painted into
milky skin, bones scaffolding flesh.
Only tempting for those prone
to gnaw, a feast for starved dogs.
The elderly approach the eucharist
with tongues lolling, dry & wanting,
waiting to accept with open mouths,
but I with hands in bored supplication,
feed myself. This body always leaves me
wanting with a hunger that can’t be
satiated here. Are we not meant
to want more than scraps, more
sustenance than scraping subsistence?
It’s how they keep us coming back.
Promises of fulfillment unfulfilled;
a lifetime of next times & afterlives.
A thousand words for lack.
Mandy Shunnarah (they/them) is an Appalachian and Palestinian-American writer in Columbus, Ohio. Their essays, poetry, and short stories have been published in Electric Literature, The Rumpus, Black Warrior Review, and others. They won the Porter House Review 2024 Editor’s Prize in Poetry and are supported by the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Sundress Academy for the Arts. Their first book, Midwest Shreds: Skating Through America’s Heartland, was released in 2024 from Belt Publishing, and their second book, a poetry collection titled We Had Mansions, was published by Diode Editions in 2025. Read more at mandyshunnarah.com.
nat raum (b. 1996) is a queer disabled artist, writer, and editor based on unceded Piscataway and Susquehannock land in Baltimore. They hold an MFA from the University of Baltimore and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Past and upcoming publishers of their work include Poet Lore, beestung, Baltimore Beat, Split Lip Magazine, BRUISER, and others. Find them online at natraum.com.
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