#carrella

[theserpentbox]

Schoharie

They ran together through the fog and the rain. She pulled the boy by the hand through half of Brooklyn in the small hours of a Sunday in the dawn of November and at times she carried him in her arms. They rode three trains in three directions in case he had someone watching, before they caught the subway to Grand Central and took the Metro North up to Peekskill where she hid a small Datsun she…

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[theserpentbox]

The Serpent Box and the Poison Jar {a story}

The Serpent Box and the Poison Jar {a story}

Charles Flint had for some time been in the habit of consuming lethal doses of strychnine and lye. He had watched the Bowsky brothers do it several years back under a patched canvas circus tent in the hills of north Georgia. They’d brought in huge crowds, daring folks to bring their own poison and offering it up to any who didn’t believe. He’d watched a young skeptic taste a small drop of lye and…

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[theserpentbox]

Magnifico {a story}

First there was Suarez, and he was a fine friend, and a great performer. He wore a little green beret and a pencil thin moustache. The children all loved him. He spoke with a heavy Columbian accent that welled up from some place deep inside the old man and his voice was rich and wonderful. But Suarez was also a lecherous drunk who drove the old puppet-master to drink himself, and there would be…

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[theserpentbox]

Holes {a story}

Before first light he took the lantern down off the peg beside the door. He peered out through the window frame and felt the cold glass against the side of his face. In the sky above the dark line of Pin Oaks and Maples he found the lavender moon. It was more dark than light in this phase but it held a strong glow. Above it there shined a single blue star. It was a good time for digging tombs. He…

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[theserpentbox]

Ovum

You are the woman, in me,

sinuous as smoke,

tapping at the lining with your egg tooth,

rolling embryonic in my yolk,

swimming in the cool night bottom of a farmhouse pond,

my bone yard lined with blackbirds and reeds,

those pollywog fingers, blunted like the ends of stones,

and your hair, the pearled iridescence of spider webs,

curled, reticulated, the vestigial tailbone of a fish,

I tap like a…

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[theserpentbox]

Ellipses

By the Word was our beginning,

and by the Word we made our end.

Mouths made sounds,

we rearranged,

alphabets,

enter, enter, return,

we conquered the ether,

but paddled with our palms

alone the viscous rivers,

Acheron and Styx.

  How many pages did we burn?

You and I,

how many witches?

  Whose effigy, this?

  All the spells,

the incantations,

guttural, Latinate, tongue-clucking,

tooth and spit,

so…

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