poetry
Mothercraft (a villanelle)
by Erin Brown in Issue Twenty-Two, February 2026
It isn’t magic, doll, which fastens you.
I am the needle, thread, I am the pin.
It is the art I wield, the work I do.
I hasten credit where I think it due,
And do not find earned pride to be a sin.
It isn’t magic, doll, which fastens you.
The craft of making men is far from new.
The stuffing pulled from me, my bone, my skin;
I am the art I wield, the work I do.
So does the sculptor, crust in earthen hue
Force-form dumb clay to spark the life within.
It isn’t magic, doll, which fastens you.
To tread upon a god’s own avenue
Is little harm to those who call gods kin;
Gods bless the art I wield, the work I do.
"Self-made,” you claim? How wickedly untrue!
And neither was it angel, demon, djinn;
It is the art I wield, the work I do.
It isn’t magic, doll, which fastens you.
© 2026 Erin Brown
Erin Brown
Erin Brown is a poet and author of horror, dark fabulism, and fantasy short fiction. She has been published in FIYAH Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, The Deadlands, Eastover Press Rural Writers Anthology, The Escape Pod, and And One Day We Will Die: Neutral Milk Hotel anthology, Fantasy Magazine, and many others, with a debut novelette "Garden of the Bloodpotter" through Psychopomp Press publishing in Fall 2025. You can find her on Instagram at @babblewocky, BlueSky @babblewocky.bsky.social, or her website www.ebrownwrites.com.