by Alex Bortell
THE FINAL SHEDDING
I hold your
head under
water. An alibi
for cumulus.
Your elect
ric current
curtain
ed. I cast
you in
feathers.
Saint
of the pock
ed lung.
A sturgeon
slithers a
long your
mesial. Wet
ting memory’s
tongue. You
grip the soil
ed edge
of fiction and I
watch the
flood. Measur
ing distance
between can
yons. Loosen
ing our
borders.
We stop
count
ing hair
prick
ing the damp
fields of
stomach.
Inspect
ing a fossil
of some
other body’s
betray
al. Hunger
is a language
I am al
ways learn
ing. Identifi
able only
in thin
light. Not
quite liv
ing. Most
ly animal.
Poet Alex Bortell (he/him) is a Chicago-based poet. His work appears or is forthcoming in the Mississippi Review, RHINO Poetry, Sundog Lit, and elsewhere. You can follow him on Instagram @alexbortell.
Artist Madari Pendas (she/her) is a writer, poet, painter, and cartoonist. Her work has appeared in Craft, The Columbia Journal, The Masters Review, The Maine Review, and more. She is the author of Crossing the Hyphen (2021) and She Loves me, She Loves me Not (2025). She currently lives and works in Hokkaido, Japan. You can follow her on Instagram @mandarinwithoutthens.
Gulf Stream Magazine 