Black Widow Halloween by Isabel Grey

I danced in Milk Bar’s Dark Room
Surrounded by Goths, and faes,
and Blood-red racket of Darkwave.
My black widow bustier an arachnid disco ball.

My body long changed, my youth
Accentuated by years of estrogen-dominance.
I wore smeared Sharon Tate makeup
Doll-like and haunted.   I should’ve known.

I spent weeks burning the match-head-sized
Volcanic glass rain, centimeters apart.
On my left breast, over my heart
A ruby hourglass of garnet straight pins.

In the game room, he invited me to Pacman.
He wore no costume. I called him
Lazy until he got me in the back alley
And told me vague plans for a novel.

After pitching my query, I implored to know his.
All you did was pass me a copy of On the Road.
“Your birthday’s tomorrow, right?” True,
But the gift wasn’t wrapped.

He lit my cigarette, molten ember our only light.
I should get back, thanks for the book.
He held out an orange 13 Billard ball
As if it were an ashtray. I stubbed my smoke

Half-way finished.        Won’t you play with me?
But names and fair games and the word
no meant nothing to him.
That was my cue to movetoolate         I hit the chalky ground.

His pockets will always be filled
with ruby-colored sticky glass whispy strings
of silk. I was pregnant when he squashed me.
My daughters will eat him alive.

Isabel Grey is a Creative Writing MFA student at Western Colorado University. Grey is an Assistant Editor at Terrain.org. Her poem "This Act Shall Take Effect" was nominated for the 2024 Pushcart Prize. Her story "Red Door House" won the 2023 WordCrafter Press Fiction Contest.

Spiral by Isabel Grey

“Here I was born and there I died.
It was only a moment for you.
You took no notice.”

• Vertigo, 1958

Novak’s French twist spiraled me to questioning the validity of here 

the contemporary whether my life truly belonged to me or was I 

braided in Hitchcock’s technicolor scene was 

each sculpture on the screen an allegory carved with meaning from before I was born 

every bench in the Palace of Legion of Honors a past life and

my behind is bobby-pinned to the traumas sieved through the polyester cushions there 

One strand of peroxide-lifted hair is plucked out as I 

let down my celluloid updo, shaking the shedding that died

and landed in a shredded pile before the portrait, is it

an offering to the ancestor I once was, 

this string of dead cells, this curl that could only 

belong to me I hold up this piece to a 

Redwood tree split open, revealing a moment, 

a vortex of dizzying coincidence rings dissected only for

the Jungian tourist, the recycled significance I used to be. I would tell you 

which of my seeds came first, which would germinate and possibly become you 

but the limbless statues, from which our likeness was made, already took 

me, already hung my portrait since I had no 

right to tell their secrets. Walk past my canvas. Hurry. Take no notice.

Isabel Grey is a Creative Writing MFA Student at Western Colorado University. Grey is an assistant poetry editor at Terrain.org. Her poem "This Act Shall Take Effect" was nominated for the 2024 Pushcart Prize. Her short story, 'Red Door Houe" won the 2023 WordCrafter Press Fiction Contest. Her upcoming work can be found in AfterPast Review, The Chamber Magainze, Black Poppy Review and elsewhere.  

Nekyia by Isabel Grey

Under, under dirt and rubble
Circle of stone, sand, bone,
Architecture encompassing the delicate point,
Circumference sea shell-trimmed
Like wreaths on doors like garden gates.
Ribbons Olympic in question marks on the sky say
Wake, wake the shadows and combs,
Each tooth untangling a snarl of breath,
Brushed smooth and parted to make way for commands of blood and chant.

Feather, feather the oars of rippling pulse
Wade the onyx canal islanded with blurry shapes—
Crocodiles, motionless and patient.

Widen, widen aperture encumbering the depth,
Expose light where it no longer shines
And bring a photo so the dead are reminded
Of a time when their lungs were full.

Greet, greet a sun who gave its final set
And rouse to a morning past the dead’s last day
alive. Hammer claw revival rips the nails of finality
And from the punctures grow mushroom caps sprouting
from upward-facing palms outstretched across the sodden branch.

Rise, rise to eat a breakfast of second life
Tasting of hourglasses turned westward.
Wash this down with infant wine, sieved through still-drying grape skin
And cupped in marrow chalices.

Box, box the mold-clothed heart and tie the lid with dark
red thread for colorblind is the dead to this guarding string—
Collateral for the necromancer’s rite.

Back, back for she has no more use for you. Close,
close the circle and book. Douse, douse
the candles. Ring, ring the
bell. Sleep.
Sleep.

Isabel Grey is a Colorado resident. She is currently receiving her MFA in Genre Fiction and Poetry at Western Colorado University. Her work has contributed to Black Poppy Review, The Chamber Magazine, WordCrafter Press, Ample Remains, and The Gay & Lesbian Review. 

Rogers Memorial: A Golden Shovel by Isabel Grey

Thin as thread, with exquisite fingers,–
   Have you seen her, any of you?–
Grey shawl, and leaning on the wind,
  And the garden showing through?

Glimmering eyes,–and silent, mostly,
Sort of a whisper, sort of a purr,


From “Wraith” by Edna St. Vincent Millay


Everybody who arrives behind this clouded glass window is here because they are thin,
Led inside by the near-flatline of arrhythmic hearts like Ariadne’s thread.
Our childhood breadcrumbs sprinkled at the heels of a monster exquisite
Only to ourselves. It lures us in with empty plates and curling fingers
Beckoning to a labyrinthine center, an island where our skin goes to grey.
A meat locker, these sterile halls are frigid even under scrubs and shawls.
The only shoes for this journey are socks but if you’re caught standing or leaning,
You’ll be stripped of them and given ankle bells that peel in the disinfected wind.
Around the bend is a dandelion field, a still life of a paused, ochre garden
Whose color is the first you’ve seen in months, a bilirubin showing
The healing process, spreading from within. You fasten a daisy chain to lead you through
But the whistling of a nurse blows apart the petals, each one glimmering
In a phlorescent sun and you’re lost again. Before discharge, you will grow a new pair of eyes
And scales will point to the maze’s end where their jagged needles whisper,
“You’ll be back,” in a tantalizing purr.

Isabel Grey is a Colorado resident. She is currently receiving her MFA in Genre Fiction and Poetry at Western Colorado University. Her work has contributed to The Chamber Magazine, WordCrafter Press, Ample Remains, and The Gay & Lesbian Review.