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"The Black Widow" by Courtenay Schembri Gray



How is it up there in your rectory of plated gold?

Your arms—torn spaghetti strings—reach down to disturb the guts of what you’ve created.

A cave of paper cocoons.

How do they taste?

The funeral procession follows every victim of yours with hot pokers locked and loaded.

Your hat tipped low, you ignite the surrounding cornfields with a fat cat of a cigar (one from your box of memories).

Where does it all go?

Take all the coats you want, with their nettle-pricking flaps; the cold will still find a shroud for your soiled soul.




Courtenay Schembri Gray is a Northern writer of the weird, the eerie, and the macabre. She is the author of The Maple Moon newsletter on Substack: https://themaplemoon.substack.com

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