Rachel Mallino’s work has appeared in various online and print journals including 42opus, Boxcar Poetry Review, Pebble Lake Review, Stirring, Wicked Alice, Blue Fifth Review, and others. Her poem, "Knucklebone", placed in Sundress Publication’s Best of the Net 2006 Anthology. She is the founding editor for Tilt Press and lives in North Carolina with her husband, daughter, and various lovable animals.

Venlafaxine

Such idle twilight, even in skin-
the one part of the body I can count on

to rebuild. But not now, not in this afghan gloom-
my opened pall. Here are the flies, the swarm

of my own whoredom: I enrolled full-throated, center-red,
a wad of myself, and fled

in a pentagonal lollygag. Where is the rind of me?
It is unidentifiable. Even ugly words tout regret.