M. Frost

If Tears Were Wishes
by Ruth Nestvold

Healer
by Phil Margolies

At Blue Crane Falls
by Brian Dolton

Quartet, With Mermaids
by Alan Smale

Flash

Flash fiction will return in our next issue.

City of Beautiful Nonesense
by Justin Howe

Raising a god
by M. Frost

]

I am his earthly mother.

Believe
what you will; I know
he comes in the dark, winged and piercing.
I know his mouth, his tongue that lifted my breast
until he shuddered into me, made me in one night
both priestess and goddess

and after a course of moons, mother.
I hold him sucking to my chest, change his mouth
from one nipple to the next, clean him, lift him to the sun.
He is radiant and fierce, my infant god
who climbed through the vessel of my womb
to emerge at last––mortal,

drizzled in blood, stinking with his own filth,
his mouth wide at the indignity.

I do not ask why he came,
why he thrusts his hands and shakes
but cannot lift his head. I hold him to the wind,
my fragile god, and feel his body quiver, see his little feet
kick toward the clouds as if he could float among them.

Then he is quiet, and as he sleeps,
the gates of his kingdom open
and he walks on golden paths, weightless as an angel.

I do not blame him when he wakes,
soiled, tears stuck to his celestial cheeks,
his lungs open in infantile cry. I cradle him,
bare my breast, assure him I can see
only the god he is and not the babe,

when in truth,
I find it hard to tell the difference.

When not writing, M. Frost studies public health. Her speculative poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Star*Line, Strange Horizons, Paradox, and Mythic Delerium. Finishing Line Press published her first chapbook, Cow Poetry, in 2006. Please contact her through her website: mfrost@mfrostwords.com.