The Land of Enchantment by S. Wagner

When it rains, New Mexico becomes a bucket of wet sand that undulates
to the rhythm of Albuquerque’s jerking off. When Albuquerque cums,

you can choose to receive agave, blood, or semen by the mouthful.
You’ll receive your choice from a man with a woman’s name

tattooed on his neck and an axe in his trunk. He won’t answer questions
about the name on his neck, but he will detail his Misery fantasy

in which a girl (any girl, you) plays Paul Sheldon and he plays Annie,
and the axe plays Good Measure by the dresser, and the girl (you) is a whore

lest she be axed. He’s serious but also very generous.
He’s everything he tells you he is.

When it snows, New Mexico beats Chamberino with a wooden spoon
to keep the house warm. When it’s drought, New Mexico belts the dust off

Chamberino with a switch. Chamberino lies flat beneath the foot
of the generous man. The man knows the sound of fist against flesh

against flesh intimately, the tang of blood, wine, and sweat.
He has a code that prevents him cutting your head off,

right off the bat. And you reckon his code to mean you’re something special.
I’m saying all of this because I know:

you’ll find a stone near an irrigation canal
that you expect to be a heart, but the stone is an addled tooth.

S. Wagner lives in Watertown, MA, where she recently found herself alone in a Lovecraftian horror. Her work has appeared in Poet Lore, Stirring, The Fiddleback, and Painted Bride Quarterly. She’s working through her legitimate fear of being lost in space while tweeting @s_maria_dubs.

Other things you might want to read:

Excerpt from “In the Land of Light” by Kurt Klopmeier A Long Goodbye by Lydia Armstrong from The Encyclopedia of Love by Caryn Lazzuri Oft-aloft by Terrell Jamal Terry