Witnessing

by Tiffany Morris

The queen is eating berries
bleached pink, her mermaid
scales glistening on the shore. 
Her blessing
takes the shape of song,
salt, tides, blood. A kingdom in
sunlit gold.

Remorse won’t live here,
this new place of singing,
these newborn skies
and its pink blossoms:
her song turns into
a crown of flowers
that never wilt-

Stand here with me
while the angels arrange the world:
asphalt, silk and skin arisen
into home, into story –

There is a ghost universe:     
firework sparks 
and gunpowder into blood.

A voice joins a voice joins a voice
strung together like jewels,
glimmering words buried
under bluegreen fathoms.

© Copyright Tiffany Morris

---

Tiffany Morris is a Mi’kmaw/settler writer of speculative poetry and fiction from Kjipuktuk (Halifax), Nova Scotia. She is the author of the chapbook Havoc in Silence (Molten Molecular Minutiae, 2019) and her work has appeared in Vastarien Literary Journal, Abyss & Apex, and Augur Magazine, among others. Find her online at tiffmorris.com or on twitter @tiffmorris.

---

Read the Rest of the September Issue

• wildgirls by Cislyn Smith
• Seaside Princess by Jordan E. McNeil and Kat Weaver
• The Mermaid Speaks by Jose Luis Pablo
• Send Feet Pics by Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas
• A Stone’s Throw from You by Jenn Reese
• Mermaids of Alabama: An Environmental Assessment by Ellie Campbell
• What Do Merfolk Notice on Land? by Priya Chand
• Puffin Queen by Jordan E. McNeil and Kat Weaver
• Witnessing by Tiffany Morris
• Beyond the Blue by Yuan Changming
• Selkie’s Bones by Marisca Pichette
• Mermaid Galleon by Alex Nodopaka
• A Mermaid Reports from Okeanos by Pat Tompkins
• Water Bites Back by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu
• Freshwater Life by Anne E.G. Nydam
• Mer Crowley Angel by Arrick Corble
• the hunter by Jasmine Arch
• I Swim Up From Below by Sarah Gailey
• The Siren’s Song by Angela Gabrielle Fabunan