Cotton Xenomorph is a literary journal produced with the mission to showcase written and visual art while reducing language of oppression in our community. We are dedicated to uplifting new and established voices while engaging in thoughtful conversation around social justice.

2 Poems: Two Dispatches

By Sarah Beddow

Dispatch

re: Biblical Plagues

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
- Philip Larkin

In the bathroom    I flushed the toilet and it backed up   / the water turned    to / blood   The toad   / sits heavy in my chest   Another  / toad   squats  so hard upon   my colleague that she will quit   / tomorrow  / to be rid of it    The toads  / squat on us all   The rain  / fell in sheets  and we were / cast into darkness   during 5th period  / lunch   The terror   of being a freshman / in the blackened bathroom   /    Last week   / another bedbug    /   No one informed   us but we knew   it was  / in the back hallway   / where the previous plague of    bedbugs     flourished  and closed the school / for days    / Yet another colleague   / crushed by the plague of the toad   / left our school   / to find   her new classroom   /  swarming with snakes   / Or you know   / one creepy snake skin the old teacher left behind   / The actual   swarms of snakes   / are   at one of our elementary schools   /   Tomorrow    is a potluck    an     / obvious analog   for a plague of locusts   / starving for    whatever we can   get

Dispatch

re: the Blossom of Youth

If we had wanted to we could / have   toured the after-prom party at my high school   Saturday night  It was / open  to the public  Party  like it's 1999   / My students were born   the year I graduated   My teenage years / are their party   decorations and / costumes   What is this generation's equivalent of  Ethan Hawke / wide-mouth kissing Winona Ryder    We / watched Ethan Hawke as Hamlet  / in AP Lit and all guffawed   / But yinz / you   are missing the brilliance  / of moody gen x Hawke   playing moody   / Hamlet   The white man   / with feels  / shall inherit the earth   And they didn't understand   that Ethan Hawke was perfect  / and garbage  all rolled into one   That's the / point   Now / could  we drink   hot blood   Monday and  all I want to do is   weep watching YouTube videos of / people singing in unison  / I watched the cast of “The Color Purple”   sing “Purple Rain”   while I ate a strawberry popsicle   on my prep    Only / two days until   the AP Lit exam   / and /  their  / success hinges on whether they can / capture complexity  in their essays  /  like how my childhood apple blossoms bloomed weeks ago     and I had no time   / to stand there and inhale   their perfume


Sarah Beddow is a poet, mother, and teacher. She has written a lot of poems and essays about her body, rape culture, and abortion. Her chapbook, What's pink & shiny/what's dark & hard was published by Porkbelly Press, and she is the founding editor of the Pittsburgh Poetry Houses, a public art project. Find her online at impolitelines.com.

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