Song of the Siren
ISSUE I — FALL 2020
— prose —
Breaking the Surface
BY REBECCA CARLYLE
The fire crackled and hissed at her from across the room, the orange light flickering upon the stone walls. She arrived late in the evening a week ago; it was too dark to take in her surroundings. A friend of hers had asked her to look after their cousin’s cabin for two weeks, and she jumped at the opportunity to get out of town—a break from the hustle and bustle of city life was much needed.
Bathwater
BY JORDAN NISHKIAN
You once heard that you could figure out which way was up by following the bubbles.
You weren’t sure when it had started, but the tinnitus that haunted your right ear had now wrapped around your head and entered your left. At first, it was something you only heard in silence—now there were days when the ringing was nearly debilitating.
I Called to Him
BY BRITTANY LAWRENCE
His siren call was elsewhere, leaving the wreckage behind. Me, broken on the floor with all of my pieces. Left in the middle of a shipwreck, he took my treasure and was gone. I watched as the parts of me he didn’t want lost their last hints of shimmer as the sun set, and then there was just darkness.
The River God’s Daughters
BY TABITHA LAWRENCE
Gifts from my mother: coarse tangles of hair in clumps and spirals, soft helmet of frizz, lavender tinged legs, big Italian snoz. Lots of sisters and, much later, lots of brothers. And something else, but I can’t put my finger on it. Sometimes she speaks of things as though I should know what she’s talking about and I wonder if I do, somewhere in the tide pools in the back of my mind.
I Didn’t Want to Kill You
BY RACHEL LEANNE DELAURENTI
I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to kill you.
I’d never experienced that before. Never have I felt guilty for singing, for luring a sailor in, for drowning him. It is, after all, in my nature. Humans are taught from a young age to hunt for food, for sport, for power. For our kind, it is the same.
We All Fall Down
BY GILES STUART
She knew she was dead when she woke up.
She wouldn't have been so sure but for the fact that she'd been dead before.
A minor surgery had turned into a twenty-four hour nightmare when a routine appendectomy revealed a latent heart condition. Only five, she barely remembered dying. She hadn’t really made much sense of living yet, so having nothing to contrast, her perspective was about as mature as a mayfly’s theories on evolution.
The Pull
BY LIZ MICHAUD
I hated this fucking house. I didn’t want to be on this ugly rock. Not like you. You said you felt something close to magic here at Coal Beach, but there was nothing enchanting about the surly old fishermen in this coastal ghost town.
And now I’m trapped here and you’re missing.
Moonlit Presage
BY DEANNA NGUYEN
A chime ripples the still night, unheard by those who dance in the garden of dreams. In a rowboat that weaves its way through Lunea’s water canals, a hooded figure sits with a fox that’s curled around her shoulders. The fox’s vaporous form emits a white haze, her eyes golden and glowing. As their destination approaches, her ears prick up. The fox jumps off the young woman’s shoulders, leaving smoky tracks that dissipate before she lands atop the bow. All the while, the bell’s song resonates from around the fox’s neck.
— poetry —
the silent siren
BY JANICE PEREGRINA
peer in, look through the porthole
at the ocean, vast as sin
the silent siren rises
from the black within
Pisces Meets the Gemini
BY JORDAN NISHKIAN
You, my air,
you bury me—
hold me under,
carry me with you.
Lament
BY DEANNA NGUYEN
Winds of a moon-soaked night,
carry her voice
as gentle as the caresses
of a mother cradling
her newborn child.
Rompeola
BY HJ MORALES
Tides sway washing sand waltz
grandma's hands scrape soapy ribbed metal.
Foam brews, grunts splash in the air
salting lungs, cleaning carbon.
Sweet Lullaby
BY REBECCA CARLYLE
It rocks me slowly, occupying
my crevices,
everything is soft here, the touch, the sound, the feel.
I am a blemish in this
pulchritude.
A Siren’s Cry
BY TAMARA LINDSEY
Lover hear my harmony.
Come find me.
Search the midnight fury.
I’m crying.
Doom Wail: A Collection
BY ETHAN A. BAKER
Screeching siren
songs snatch
me out of everyday daydreams
I escape to—
Harp On
BY AUDREY KEMP
We have encountered her before,
The femme fatale from myth and lore --
The emblematic minx or tease,
Who conjures chaos in the breeze.
The Other Side of Paradise
BY HOLLY KING
The greatest lie she ever told
herself was that her spine
felt burdened from violet
rosebuds pushing out
of each crack in the cement.
That thorns broke open troves
of forgotten dreams.
Lobster Bisque
BY NATE BUSSEY
Sometimes I feel the incorrigible need
to get into hot water. I'll draw myself
a bath, raise the temperature by degree
the way you cook lobster,
plunge my ears beneath the surface
to listen to the water I'm making filthy