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News Article

We, the Fleas

Jessica Faulkner (writer), Ivan Jeldres (illustrator)

My best cursive sits on a headstone / We wear name tags to bed / As if the death-nurse does not know us

Creative

An illustration of a tree and a headstone on a sharp cliff to the right, and roots that become snake

Content warning: references to death; snakes

My best cursive sits on a headstone
We wear name tags to bed
As if the death-nurse does not know us
And perhaps she does not
Breath is soft and sweet as air
And we are all final

I lie under a tree
And behold our earth
Encircled by the snake
We hatched and now deny
Squeezing
The soil sleeping
Under the grass

And on its field of scales, we sleep

We
We, the fleas