RECIPIENT OF THE 2023 SMALL ORANGE EMERGING WOMAN POET HONOR

Undressing

He’s there

for three blocks.

Salivating,

snapping at my heels,

until the lock clicks

and I’m safe.

There’s a throbbing in my temple

and a shadow outside.

I shred my clothes and lie

until night fades and time slows,

dawdles,

droops like Dali’s clock.

The boiler thrums,

so I peel my scalp like an orange

and stagger, heavy-legged, to running water.

My flesh flakes,

falls in chunks and clumps of pink,

I scour my bones with a pumice stone.

There’s palpitations in the plug,

sink slick with bile,

my skin is minced meat in the bath.

LEPIDOPTERIST ONLINE

I swiped right on a caterpillar. All peach fuzz and short legs. At dinner, she shed her skin and a chrysalis appeared. She’s just shy, I told the waiter, and took her back to mine. A leg emerged and the silk slipped off. Wings teased the air. She preened, sporting crimson stripes on black velvet. Can’t stay long, she said afterwards, and the wind swept her up. A second date was off the cards. Later, I matched with a silkworm. She'd be a beauty by night, slender wings and a short lifespan.

Sarah Townsend is an emerging writer from Manchester, England. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Oxford and her journalistic writing has been published by the Cherwell newspaper. She takes an interest in fantasy and macabre literature and has an upcoming short story publication in Berkeley Fiction Review.