1 Better to collect miniature trolls beside toy bridges and arrange them on doilies. Best we commemorate old fears until our heads are full lest we trump up some flesh and blood devil.
2 Someone’s been walking on your grave. You have seen yourself unexpectedly in a mirrored door. (though some have claimed it’s pleasant to leave your body then return) Now you return his gaze.
Rae ArmantroutRae Armantrout’s most recent book is Safe Rooms (Wesleyan, 2026). Her book Versed won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She is professor emerita at UC San Diego and currently lives in the Pacific Northwest.