POETRY
Ourasphaira giraldae Awakens
by H.V. Patterson in Issue Twelve, December 2023
Gods writ microscopic,
we are the children of extremes
chitin-clothed, long-dead spores enduring still,
ghosts of ghosts
a billion years dead
For millennia,
we collected your buried tribute
flesh, blood, bones
plastics, garbage, toxic sludge
every sacrifice you unknowingly gave
Now, we emerge from melting permafrost
from chthonic darkness
from fossilized decay
We are the plural gods of Tartarus,
heralds of humanity’s end,
and our hungry spores will root
in your soft and sinful flesh
© 2023 H.V. Patterson
H.V. Patterson
H.V. Patterson (she/her) lives in Oklahoma and writes speculative fiction and poetry. She's a cofounder of Horns and Rattles Press and runs Dreadfulesque. She has stories and poems recently published or upcoming with Sliced Up Press, Creature Publishing, Flame Tree Press, Eerie River, Flash Fiction Online, Diet Milk Magazine, and Black Spot Books. She loves reading and writing about myth and folklore, spooky science, and weird lifeforms. Find her on Twitter @ScaryShelley and on Instagram @hvpattersonwriter.