- Poetry
Mad Crawford - Ideal Woman
I want to drink from a hedgehog
a vessel with a hole for a straw
in the central locus of its back
it’ll go down smooth
drinking a god
let bodies spill from me
this is the woman I want to be
shape a burrow
from everything I find
place the drapes
of a proper color
make my babies meals
let me wear a prickly spine
rise up when suitors approach
let me dare them
may they pull out thorns
for days after
remember needle wounds
count the stars
I want to live forever
protect my babies from pricks
I bear wounds for all my litter

Mad Crawford is a recent Hunter College graduate with a degree in Greek & Latin. She has been previously published in The Olivetree Review, The Candy Zine, and Loser Zine. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.