Executioner
in the middle of this field you cannot dream
only sit and stare beyond the fence barely
a girl and barely from heaven
the sandpit swirls slow like
a mother’s arm checking the temperature
of a bath
but you were never a baby born
never waxed and threaded in the fit of a
women's clothes
the sun’s dry heat is a switch without leaves
(its flaying)
the only spoil you know
Ahja Fox can be found around Denver, Colorado reading at various events, cheering on her community, or co-hosting Art of Storytelling. She is an assistant poetry editor for Copper Nickel and Homology Lit and publishes in online and print journals like Five:2:One, LEVELER, Driftwood Press, Rigorous, Okay Donkey, The Perch (Yale), and more. She has also been included in the 2018 Punch Drunk Anthology, YANYR Anthology, and Reclaim: An Anthology of Women’s Poetry. Follow and contact Ahja on Instagram or Twitter at aefoxx.
Other Works
Roxana Geffen Interview
by Sean Sam
... I wanted to be overt about the peculiarities of WASP culture, instead of treating it as the default unmarked category, to treat it the way an ethnographer would. Growing up I always resisted this idea of excessive ancestor worship ...
My Grandfather's House
by Ursula Pike
... if we left after school on Friday I could be eating sourdough waffles with my grandparents on Saturday morning. I always thought my mother took me there so I could be close to my grandparents. Now I wonder if she was going for herself ...