Emily O’Neill gets Supernatural in “reflect  / refract,” one of the 5 poems she contributed to our Fall 2014 issue.

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PAINT ME SILVER
with power / let mine be the mouth
to echo all of it back / no praying,
no Devil’s Traps drawn in yellow
chalk / keep your scorpions, your virgin
blood above the door, that Latin
compulsion to leave the body
behind un-cursed /

                                              I don’t speak any holy
tongue / in it my name means mirror / call me
the rain / I’ll make puddles, each puddle a leak
towards the future / in the desert even
the rocks bloom to greet rain / let everything
kiss me that way / let death twist
back around itself like a moonflower / let the moon
drop like a pebble into my mouth /

forgive me / I’ll crawl up your shirtfront to lick the salt
there /  bang bang / call me cured / the only true trap
door out of any ritual is death / the mantra to chant—no fear
without flying, without falling,
without a haunting

                                                          where there’s a cliff
there’s a chasm / then a chill / then a voice shouting back
each secret born from your lips & dropped
into the barren dark

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EMILY O’NEILL is a writer, artist, and proud Jersey girl. Her recent poems and stories can be found in Electric Cereal, Gigantic Sequins, and Split Rock Review, among others. Her debut collection, Pelican, is the inaugural winner of Yes Yes Books’ Pamet River Prize and forthcoming in 2014. You can pick her brain at http://emily-oneill.com.