poetry
If I must exist here,
by Eleanor Ball in Issue Twenty-Two, February 2026
then with open arms. Bitten nails. Tongue bloody
from eating itself like a snake. From pressing
my mouth to yours. Oracle, puzzle,
three-body problem. Then in prayer,
licking the wounds of the earth.
Then sunflowers, springing
from my upturned palms,
rimmed with blood-crust,
the new Stigmata.
Then I grasp my grandma,
pull her through the fog. Speaking her tongue,
a tongue that has yet to be.
Then I ride across the mud-slow river,
and there you are. We eat potatoes and peppers,
our bellies full, and the earth shakes.
If I must exist here, then with open arms.
Face turned to the milk-swirled moon,
hanging heavy as a promise in the sky.
© 2026 Eleanor Ball
Eleanor Ball
Eleanor Ball is a librarian and assistant professor at the University of Northern Iowa. Her poetry is featured or forthcoming in Fantasy Magazine, Orion’s Belt, Small Wonders, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere, and she’s a first reader at Flash Point Science Fiction. Come say hi at eleanor-ball.com and @eleanorball.bsky.social.