Tara Campbell

A Curious Powerful Fire

Poem text formatted into shape of flame: it’s like your body has forgotten
how to work its own thermometer, it’s disavowing all knowledge of that former ease, comfort in mind and your own flesh, how to regulate itself, it flushes skin burns then freezes, sweat growing clammy in twisting sheets at night, then you shiver, as though some chaotic woman behind the screen has forgotten how all the bits and pieces work, all instructions now gone, just the charred ashes, arcane woman flipping switches, freezing/roasting you until sweat trickles down your shivering back and you hate this long-hidden woman until you discover she no longer cares what anyone else thinks and you realize not really giving a shit anymore is a curious powerful fire

Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, and fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse. Publication credits include Masters Review, Wigleaf, Electric Literature, CRAFT Literary, Uncharted Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, and Escape Pod/Artemis Rising. She’s the author of two novels, two hybrid collections, two short story collections, and a chapbook of sestinas.

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