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.

Prayer with a Bullet

BY AMORAK HUEY

we are sorry we have so little to offer a song

a song that never ends a bird not flying a day’s

last vulnerable moments a nest before sleep

this prayer we teach hope is it a kindness

to pass on this world? or is

it cruelty pretending we cannot see

the darkness below the bush beneath the thorns

cannot hear the silence inevitable as a bullet’s whistle?

we ask so much of each other we have so little to give


Amorak Huey is author of four books of poems including Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy (Sundress Publications, 2021). He teaches writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.

I Still Haven't Seen The Fly

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)