In our first-ever audio edition of Assignment, hosts Rebecca Dragon and Gillian Kemmerer read a series of poetry submissions from authors Ashley Mallick, Skylar Brown, Nicole Zelniker, Alexander Burdette and Daphne Rose. You can find Assignment Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple and Spotify. Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode!

Full texts of the readings are included below.

The Mother Cult by Ashley Mallick

In the quiet place behind the blue waters of her irises the Earth shifts, quakes,

animals die and are born, writhe from the wood, trill their first words and lay still again.

Under the pale light of her teeth that clang,

set together, slipping inside the firm walls of her lips,

her children lisp their first lessons, call out her name like prayers,

breathe in the sweet, wet, fumes of her hairspray

until their jaws stick and slam closed. Still, they hum the rolling tune of her name,

run tongues over the backs of their teeth,

suck and wonder that they are made in her image.

Her children covet her body. When she walks past,

the fixed crack of her high heels sends them into raptures.

They lie down, whisper to each other that they’ve seen real loveliness. That there is nothing like their god.

Nothing so tall and fine and she takes her steps quick, hard, without thought closes the door.

Leaves them to roll the soft tip of her eyeliner along their lids, submitting to the sacraments of foundation and blush,

running small fingers down the lanes of their legs

sheathed in her dark tights.

They wait for her, for tilting slam of the door at three A.M., the seeping light of morning

fain sleep.

crushed against curtains, they hold their breath,

When she walks past the room

their heads move in tandem, eyes lusting for the deep

curve of her shadow. Mouths full of love words they whisper as their heads soften the pillows,

eyes seeking the gamy dusk behind their lids, minds leaping the steady fence,

lambs at pasture,

limbs weak and shaking, milk steeped.

I Carry My Heart with me by Skylar Brown

I carry my heart with me

very bloody and pulpy thing that it is

you know some days I want to lift it out of my body vomit it out my throat

to sell to the highest bidder

but then I think who would want it

and anyway

the thing is

the real reason I carry it around with me

is that

very bruised and mangled thing that it is

I can't help thinking

once before you wanted it

and

I just keep thinking

maybe you will want it again someday

and so although it is very very heavy

still

I carry my heart with me.

Submergence by Nicole Zelniker

You are born drowning. At the bottom of the ocean, your lungs fill with saltwater and sludge. Anglerfish light the immutable night, bright white spots catching on their jagged teeth and mis- shapen eyes. Fragmented coral litters the gritty floor and cuts the soles of those bipedal.

The journey to the surface is agonizing, but necessary. Your ears burst with pressure and your limbs burn with overexertion. Your lungs beg for rest, for air, unaware that to accept one is to sacrifice the other. It has been decades and you are hardly halfway.

Miles and miles above, on a sailboat not far from the coast, a group of land-born lounge on the deck, beers in hand, life jackets secured snugly over sun-kissed skin. In the hazy light of day, they laugh at the fate of the less lucky and congratulate themselves on never falling over- board.

In The Darkroom by Alexander Burdette

When i was the the heavy feet & the burning eyes trembling fingers &

the wrecked hull of a boat

with the sea rushing in trying so hard to bail

i was ears bombarded &

eyes rubbed raw

the hunch of my back & the ache of my skull

a sub-bass beat in a cave

i was a hole in the ground

& the dirt around

it i was a cry-dying laugh &

a scorched-out match

& i was lucky some days

some very some days

if no one was using the darkroom

Mr. Fitz would let me

ragged & haggard & not 4 hours awake

slip past the curtain

& i’d stop

awed by the change

from Loud & Bright & Busy

& i’d sigh & step in

un-stare

longingly

at the so-gentle dark

that welcomed me in

among enlargers’ ember eyes

let myself be grounded

with my trembling legs

on that sure

cool tile

o that

deep

black

safety & silence

enveloped me

as i rounded the corner

& knelt by the enlarger

tucked most into the curve

(of the black cinder blocks

& the semi-gloss pipes)

knelt

& padded my jacket under my head

& made myself a pillow

& laid my head down

where the photo paper sleeps

the black metal behemoth hunched over my head & i breathed

& it came out shuddering and whimper

breathed

& felt the hot salt tears slide freely past my eyelids which were closed

On the Swingset After School by Caitlin Breen

On the swingset after school

But before their parents get out of work, two girls in sequined Converse

and mall-bright tees lean back

when they reach the peak of the swing, aim their bodies toward the sun

before the arc swings them back,

a practiced motion the younger kids imitate until they can do it too. These girls are six and eight,

the middle of the age range

here, but listen, they are little girls,

which is why it feels like someone hit me

in the stomach when the one asks the other how many calories it burns - playing

on the swingset - and the other

makes a guess. I’m telling you

like it’s now - this was ten years ago, these girls are other people now,

might not remember the conversation they had on the swingset at the after school program where teenagers and education students

with clipboards and STAFF t-shirts kept an eye on them, outside

until dark and sometimes after,

until someone came to pick them up and bring them home. Then again, maybe they do - maybe it burns,

a blaze in the tangle of single-digits, a pin on a faded map, saying:

that road you went on? It started here.

Lotus by Daphne Rose

Allow yourself to start drowning. Here, in the deepest of the shallows, in the mud. Be not afraid, says the caterpillar,

crawling over your knee, but you can’t help it, because the body remembers. Back

to seven years old. Remembers how the bottom of the pool lunged to bite your chin And the water ran up your nose like it

had something important to tell you. How

it hurt when the doctor removed the stitches. It hurt so badly you closed your eyes, but

the tears still leaked out, as though your body was trying to drown itself again, to manufacture its own ruination,

trying to remember, to recreate,

to understand what happened to it. You

still have nightmares of that moment. Of the unrelenting touches of ghostly hands.

As a small child you would waterboard your Barbie doll in cherry Jell-O. You once

emerged from darkness and wet, sticky and

and red and strange, screaming out a love song. Among prophets, this is the golden rule:

life repeats itself again and again.

The golden rule. I did not take care of myself. When I caught you red-handed I kissed each one of your fingers and I let you try again. The golden rule is this: The work praises the man as the blackberry praises the bird as

the jawbone praises the knuckle

as the graveyard praises the corpse

as Jesus praises the Romans.

Your violation made me what I am.

Will you stand in the deepest part of the shallows with me? When we flinch, will our bodies tell us why?

The Bad Goods by Daphne Rose

In the grocery store I

fill my basket with fresh resolutions.

Re so lutions.

Some words just feel good in the mouth. I try to avoid eye contact

with the persimmons.

I’m afraid of what they’ll say to me.

And the barest scrap of attention

will be taken as an invitation.

But I see them still,

from the corner of my vision:

papery leaves, gleaming orange flesh, clambering over each other,

foaming at the mouth.

They stand outside in the parking lot, smoking cigarettes. I taste them. Crisp sunlight and suicide.

I’m shopping for a new way to say “I’m sorry”,

but it’s January now,

and the next shipment of regrets hasn’t arrived yet. It will soon, in the form of unflossed teeth.

Unlost weight.

Too much vodka.

Not enough self-mercy.

The resolutions are on clearance, though,

and the poinsettias, too:

50% off a dollar seventy-five.

Leaves soft and rain-wet, bruised, like lungs.

Alive in the muck and gore and ashes of a bygone year. The poinsettias grab my hands.

The only way out of this is through,

they tell me, in their tender red voices, touching my face. Go on. On.