Tag: monster

A Monster of Correction by William Doreski

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A Monster of Correction

No one knew how Aunt Alice got into our family. With her starry blue gaze and stilted posture she looked like a refugee from some tiny, impoverished European state. She moved into our apartment with a fat leather bag and an armful of books from Goodwill’s dusty shelves. The first night, when Carole served pigs’ feet and artichokes, Aunt Alice proved to be a monster of correction. Pigs’ feet should be boiled, not roasted. Artichokes go better with beef. Our dining room looks dingy. We should repaint it a delicate shade of yellow. Carole’s apron looks old-fashioned. Your hair sticks up funny. We went to bed early that night, leaving Aunt Alice complaining on the phone to a stranger she had randomly dialed. Days passed. Nights passed. The monster of correction corrected everyone we knew. She told Calvin he talked oddly. She ordered Melinda to wear longer skirts and stop showing her stuff. She told the Unitarian preacher that his God was a wimp and needed elocution lessons. She even tried to correct the sloppy eating habits of our cats, but they ignored her. Carole and I couldn’t ignore her. Aunt Alice had a voice of flint on steel. She sparked when she spoke, and several times almost set the place on fire. Finally we asked her to leave. Her response was to stretch out on the sofa and die. She was clutching a sheet of paper with instructions for the disposal of her carcass. She wanted to be cremated, and the urn with her ashes set on our mantle. Done and done. Now when that metallic voice creaks in the dark we correct her by telling her no one can hear unless she speaks up.

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William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is No Vacancy (2025). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.

Grief by Rose Gubele

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Grief

I wrote a note to myself: “Remember to grieve.”
I don black, turn my eyes down.
I need a minute to untangle my past,
mourn the girl who could have been.

Monsters are real:
not embodied evil, stalking silver screens,
not experiments performed by
unethical inventors who drink their own toxins.

Monsters have logic, though not excuse.
They can be kind, if it suits the goal:
manipulation, control, power.
Corrupted by pride, arrogance, greed.

I still remember the monster in the hallway:
no sharp claws, no pointed fangs,
just a boy with a knife,
trying to make his own life better.

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Rose Gubele is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Central Missouri where she teaches courses in rhetoric and writing. She received her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition at Washington State University. She has previously published poems in Red Ink and Penumbra.

Two Poems by Alan May

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MONSTER POEM

I moved the limp body
out of the road

to the frozen grass
felt the broken spine

of the stray who ate
our table scraps

I was a child
but still I knew

there was nothing
we could do

animals pass away
or go on moving

toward some new danger
I pet the orange cat

next to me now
one of many

here and gone
but all are the one

dark creature
I lay next to

dark body I left
mewing in the cold

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THE ARTIST AT WORK

The morning ended as usual.
I painted with the color chartreuse.

I made a sandwich out of fire
and ate it as I was driving

around the room in an ancient golf cart.
My understudy, a retired

vice admiral, stared at me
as if I were an assassin

suddenly arriving
with a whole platoon of seahorses.

I stayed in the golf cart. I ate
my goddam sandwich made of flames.

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Alan May holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Alabama. He has published three books of poetry. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Hollins Critic, The Idaho Review, New Orleans Review, Interim, The New York Quarterly, Willow Springs, The Laurel Review, and others. He hosts The Beat, a poetry podcast produced by Knox County Public Library. https://alan-may.com/