Kelly Gray is the author of Instructions for an Animal Body (Moon Tide Press, 2021), The Mating Calls//of the// Specter (Tusculum Review Chapbook Prize, 2023), Our Sodden Bond (MAYDAY, 2025), and Dilapitatia (Moon Tide Press, 2025). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, Boulevard, ZYZZYVA, and AGNI, among other places. Gray lives with her family in a cabin in the woods and in addition to her four other jobs, teaches poetry to rural folks in rural places. You can read more of Gray's work at wildness and muzzle.
Let me fear on the body of spider. Not the spirit of them, not the essence, just obscene roundness,haired. Unable to usher them out, I settle to invite them in, letting wilted bodies decompose~window side, corner wood and ledge, multitudes gather. I think This is the end of times, my child’s small form pressed against mine in the corner of… Read more →