Sheleen McElhinney is a Bucks County, PA based poet whose work has appeared in Abandon Journal, West Trade Review, Poetry Is Currency, and others. Her debut book, Every Little Vanishing, was the winner of the 2021 Write Bloody Book Award.
For Jesse Jesse was the youngest boy of thirteen boys and I was the youngest girl of eight one quiet childless house groaning between ours as we teemed from the windows and made smears of our fingerprints on the glass Jesse had an imaginary friend and it told him to key all the cars on our street pour sugar into… Read more →
Let me be a monster, or a child. Does not play well with others. Let me be cruel for once; owner of the ferocious dog, unapologetic of its snarl. I, too, am feral. I, too, have teeth that sink into animal. Let me tell the truth, risk losing you for good. I have earned this darkness. Paid for it with… Read more →
Not the blood moon in its fullest phase. Not the wedding ring I yanked from my finger. Not the cold mouth of the bottle I held to the O of my lips to drown myself inside. Not the womb I came from, that tight balled fist. But my child’s face, round and soft, perfect in the well of my palms… Read more →