[Issue 2025.74]

‘The Void Is in a Playful Mood Tonight’, Naomi Simone Borwein

Art © 2025 Carmen Moran

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This is your fault, witch.
It had a voice like rusty chains.
And cracking joints.

The black cloud of wings
dancing in the spindrift.

The silhouette            Shoving me
Towards the hole            that opened up
to receive            at dusk.

Let time concede to you…

In parting
Like the vast milk hairs
Around glass cauls
Pouring hot sheen sheer resin—
Along with me—
Into the pit of the sea.

Hungry waves eddy and roil.
Finger tendrils of surf gesture
the ocean spits and croons.

Above the vaulted cage of the vortex.

I stumble at the lip,
my toe snagging on      something.
And looking down the shaft,
The time flux-resin
filling the pits and grooves of starflesh
left to cosmic carrion
oxygen starved or waterlogged and the rich weave of
red scraps corded nests in
bedding
at the bottom.
Howled.

The voice was giddy
Ohhh the water is in a playful mood today!

What is this?
Globes of my eyes cracked
by spider webs of silver veins.

Your new home. The sneer.
The voice—the sound of fingers
rubbing against a taut balloon.

Oooooph
My knees kicked out beneath me.
And spiralling.
Down the force of a hard
thrust against my scalloped back.
Blue Bones irradiated.

May this be you final resting place!

And nose diving,
tail spinning
cork screwed—down—
met the force of…
in the walls
in the vortex of currents.
Cracking against my skull
and shoulder cracks.
Sound of lips beneath me
Bbbbbbb bbbbbb bbbbb
like an engine seizing
as it fills with fluid.
A flash of eel-like lips
and fanning limbs
the bbb bbb bbb echoing
between the rocky up-thrusts
in this void.

Pressure
Tightening
Like a clamp
a zip tie
around my ankles and wrists
crawling over my body bind
Red cords of living things
Nesting around me.

Two giant lanterns
hazy light gobbled up
by dark murky fluid
slide past the vitreous surface
of the wall.

Staring into the pit—It reeks
and shafts of sky spot lighting
the alien-looking ground scattered
beyond the blood nest
black shadows in the corners of my eyes.
Shifting
before a red cord loops around my eyes
like a blindfold.
The wind dead inside the pit.
Only the soft skittering shuffles
dragging sounds.
Landing next to a harpy’s head and torso
aware of
the right side of my tongue,
swollen
scraps of palette.
Of the limbs
numb constriction
Settling
      Nesting
Culling
the spackled gaze of a knife
across a braided surface
of seaweed and starflowers
anemones
and white ridges of tiny pentagons
And microbes dusting
the inside of my throat,
nostrils,
the ringing in my ears
drowning out the shuffle of feet or fins or tentacles
pairs of—wings—surely more than one?

The debris under my nails aching
crawling, and icy fingers
tickling my jointed spine.
Vents bubbling—in time—
beneath the seal
Of this void
is in a playful mood
tonight.

© 2025 Naomi Simone Borwein

[Issue 2025.74]

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