This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Catherine Garbinsky, is from Noctuary by C. Rees (Host Publications 2026).
The oracle haunts the 24-hour diner
In this vinyl temple, I am the living ox preserving
the heart of a butchered king. I wake sealed lip-to-lip
with my frail reflection on plate glass. Coffee, darker
than the server’s dyed hair, renounces
second-hand headlights off the highway.
I interpret my cream chipped beef, wanting for entrails.
In this heat, it won’t outlast the flies.
The server, batter-white as Bergman’s Death,
kills tea bags, kills crosswords, kills hours.
I utter as I eat, purloin each moment down
my throat like a poached egg. Before dawn,
I abjure home like I abjure the huddled ruins
of complimentary toast. I take one misguided bite, scatter
the remnants for sunrise: crumpled eidolons, stale visions.
Northbound, the 18-wheeler splits my reflection,
and day tumbles out like new-birthed snakes.
where you are, I cannot t e l l
C. Rees (they/them) is a queer poet and bookseller whose work contends with contamination and complicity, emergent ecologies, hauntings, and porousness. Their first poetry collection, NOCTUARY, will be published by Host Publications in 2026. C. was raised in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Lenni-Lenape land, and currently lives in Austin, TX, on Comanche, Lipan Apache, Coahuiltecan, Tonkawa, and Jumanos land. They hold an MFA in Poetry from the New Writers Project at UT Austin. They are ideologically and materially committed to a free Palestine.
Catherine Garbinsky (she/they) is a writer living in Knoxville, Tennessee. They received their MFA in Poetry from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, where they are now a PhD candidate. Catherine’s poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She has written two chapbooks: All Spells Are Strong Here (Ghost City Press, 2018) and Even Curses End (Animal Heart Press, 2019), and her work has been featured in Yes Poetry, Coffin Bell Journal, Cream City Review, and elsewhere. 
