Two Pieces

this ring i (opal)

a 10-year-
old believes
a girl
fits
a fist
of rings
i spilled
mom’s jewelry
box
opal teaches
m a g i c
in the face
of stone an-
other
face
you
slip-
ping
de-
sire me
on each finger
i
slip
one
over two
fingers
one
day
opal
wears
me
w a v e s
i lose the
ring
in the box
i lose
the box
i
lose
the way
to the box

Ex

Welcome back to the land
of the living
dead Yesterday
a haircut
changed my life Honest I sleep
facedown most days
Remember the time
we tossed our bloody
knives into the lake held
our breaths until
the waves parted Me neither
You win
pinkest posy longest shadow
smiliest
dog Will I ever see you
again in the desert
at high
noon
in wet
socks

Crystal Odelle (they/she) is a queer trans storyteller, chapbooks editor at Newfound, and author of the novel Goodnight. Their stories have appeared in Split Lip Magazine, Gulf Coast, bedfellows, beestung, Passages North, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. Crystal was a Tin House Scholar and Lambda Literary fellow, nominated for Best of the Net, and anthologized in We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction. She writes RPGs at Feverdream Games and serves as academic and administrative coordinator for the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.