C.U.N.T— by Marisca Pichette

Crone cups her clit,

chamomile tea cooling next to the 

cat, in the cottage. Her cottage.

Cinders fill the fireplace and outside

cool air, cool summer, cool vines

climbing the cottage walls she

cultivated in 1692 and

carried into now.

Under muscle and fat and skin her

uterus is joyfully empty. Imagine

umber blood drying unseen, 

using nothing, leaving her 

urn unfilled, urges unspent,

uniquely unoccupied. She 

utters one word as she cums:

Unbleed.

No one knocks, no one 

nears the nothing house, nightshade

nimbly cresting the eaves and knotting

naked branches for nuthatches to 

nest in. She needs nothing besides her

name. A name and a nature, 

nestled together and napping

nurture away. 

This morning she takes her temperature.

Thermometers tinkle like windchimes, 

trailing along the windows and 

twined between her fingers. 

“Too much” is not her truth. Tonight

the titmice tug twill and tweed 

to twine their beds. She tells them

two tales, then treats herself 

to one.

Crone uses nylon tablecloths.

Crone ushers needles through talismans.

Crone measures her uneven teeth, 

cuts her hair gray. 

Crone celebrates her 

unbeing, knowing her 

name is known

to no one but herself.

AUTHOR BIO:

Marisca Pichette is a queer creator of monsters and magic. Her work has appeared and is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Fireside Magazine, Fusion Fragment, Daily Science Fiction, Uncharted Magazine, PseudoPod, and PodCastle, among others. She lives in Western Massachusetts, surrounded by bones and whispering trees.