By Sam Moe

He grabs and his arms are unmovable and nothing you say matters, not don’t or stop or can we just eat the pasta on the stove, leave me alone, there is another man seated on the couch. He witnesses. He looks at his phone and does not comment. The third and fourth are in the bedroom and soon, so are you. Your neck is a red smudge. The room is navy but, in the past, it was well lit. Your therapist later tells you this is common. The sky hides itself behind a sheet of clouds. A lamb returns to its farmer hours after it has been slaughtered. Bright honey eyes and starving for the evening to go differently. Perhaps it’s a little tired of pretending there doesn’t lurk a scissor within its jaw and maybe a little bit of its heart thrums to the concept of revenge, besides, who understands hunger like the farmer, certainly not his siblings or friends who will hear these stories, but does anyone understand? They leave with memories of witnessing. They leave shadows in their wake, cracks in the wall in the shape of impact, snakeskin in the valley and a grieving bowl of shredded fur. That night, he looks away from you even though he knows. And the wind wraps the house in a foamy gauze. And the mice, small like blood cells, crawl to the forest. Cars are stripped of their paint. Someone called you a sample, like a hair follicle collected in a testing tube or the first few seconds of an opera. Upon returning home, your partner comments you are the way you used to be. Fracturing at the thought of being physical. You remind him of the last time you went to the farm. Oh, he says. Then the two of you lay in the dark and listen to plush snow tossing its feathers against the window.

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Sam Moe is the author of six books of poetry. Her most recent collection, RED HALCYON, is forthcoming from Querencia Press in 2026. Her debut short story collection, I MIGHT TRUST YOU, is forthcoming from Experiments in Fiction in Spring 2025. She has attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and received fellowships from the Longleaf Writer’s conference and the Key West Literary Seminar. Sam has also received writing residencies from The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow and Château d’Orquevau.