“The Tsar of Death and Tsar of Life greatly feared
one another, for death is surrounded by souls,
and is never lonely.”
-Catherynne M. Valente

Death feels close tonight:
down the hill, around the corner,
he’ll have to heave the cannon of bone
to my house. Some journeys are hard on the raven’s wings.

If it’s extra time I’m given, I will make myself a loaf of bread.
Take it to bed and make sleep offerings
to all the unhatched selves. How I will
feed them for the first and last time. How

they will call me Mother of Living for Now.
Death, winded, will be polite enough to ring
the bell. At least on the other side of the door
there is a bird singing.

Lauren Paredes is a storyteller across mediums with a soft spot for the unusual. Her work has appeared in Salamander, TRNSFR, Warm Milk, phoebe, and elsewhere. Her first chapbook of poems, Otherwise, Magic, was released in 2019 by First Matter Press. She currently resides in the Berkshires, nestled between hills.

Born in Oregon in 1988, Brooklyn-based painter and curator Rachel Chaldu received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute in 2016, and her BFA in Painting and Drawing from Southern Oregon University in 2014. In the fall of 2018 She attended the Vermont Studio Center. Recently, her work was shown in Fourth Street Show, New York. In the Summer of 2018, her work was shown in the group shows Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself and House Broke. Her work attempts to reclaim the landscape of her childhood growing up in the American West."