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Behold the Monster in Repose, Jarod K. Anderson
“Not long ago, as a sort of retirement gift, she took to calling herself Tamara, but the name had trouble sticking. All real monsters are Marxist about names.”
Return of the Feathered Octopus, Glen Armstrong
“She was away learning that night’s / ever-pending arrival / was at once a perpetually // receding destination. / (It was all very Zen.)”
Tricks Man, Janet Barry
“Tricks Man comes / with lies on his feet, / he is naming all the babies”
Once They Sainted a Mermaid, Chloe N. Clark
“. . . when she wept it tasted / the same as the sea and so she never / knew when she was actually sad.”
The Dragon, August Donovan
“I was a bloated, bored carp. / Then I thrashed up the waterfall — / and became a legend.”
Pterodactyl, Joseph Dorazio
“One needn’t have feathers to fly”
Gargoyles, Christina Frei
“They thrive / on fear, eat their young // and defecate limestone.”
Dinosaur World, Andrew Hemmert
“. . . Ignore / the rum-laughing / college girls // straddling / a plaster mammoth / for a photograph.”
Myakka Skunk Ape, Andrew Hemmert
“Stippled with ghost-white / water roses, the river slips through”
The Dragon Slayer, Madeline Maske
“She knew better. She knew she should have assembled a hunting party or at least come up with a plan, but emotion had blinded her, a mistake for which she had seen many good knights fall.”
Gorgon, Roselyn Perez
“You have turned me to stone. / Mistaken me for an enemy”
Green Man, Ben Pullar
“My neighbor David Geraldson is a Green Man. I found out one night while I was putting the bins out.”
Δείτε τι θέλετε; Θέλετε να βλέπετε (See What you Want; Want What you See), Jerrod Schwarz
“There is a basilisk in my left eye, rapping the / sclera like cat claws on a window pane.”
Xenophobe, Trevor Tingle
“We understand the Alien monster. / The terrific propagation of species, / a matter of no small personal interest, / an exoskeletal pleasure at hand.”
Ring Rock Riot, Steve Vernon
“She was looking down at me, which was quite a trick. There aren’t many who can. The truth is I could stunt-double for a poorly carved totem pole. I stood nearly nine feet tall with knuckles that hung down around my knee caps, and I was still standing in her shadow.”