Adele Evershed
On the Ward of Lost Babies
In the ward a mad woman keening for her sealskin keeps us all awake. She has
shucked her sheets, screaming that she wants to leave this barren place and swim
once more alongside her selkie sisters through an opaline ocean-a place where
there are no lingering scents of blood or blue milk to tangle her in the nets of 'what if'.
As she rocks on her bed the other two shell-bound occupants give her crabby side-eyes.
And when her gown falls open they see her jellyfish belly wobbling as she starts to rip out
the tentacles of her drip, until one of them snaps, "Shut the fuck up." The night nurse sails
in and her rubber-soled shoes squeak on the snowy linoleum like a clubbed seal, "Now
what's all this Mrs. Evershed?" she asks as she replaces the drip and reseals the sheets.
Then she offers me a cup of sweetened tea in a chipped mug.
suncups
the ultra sound photo
no longer on the fridge
Bio
Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer living in Connecticut. Some of the places her work has been published include Grey Sparrow Journal, Anti Heroin Chic, Gyroscope, and Janus Lit. Adele has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net for poetry and has two poetry collections, Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press) and The Brink of Silence (Bottlecap Press). She has published two novellas in flash with Alien Buddha Press called Wannabe and Schooled. Her short story collection; Suffer/Rage has recently been published by Dark Myth Publications.