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Science | Shape | Shivers, oh my! Read Strange Horizons.

It’s the trifecta–some science (anthrax), some shape (a maw, a shroud), some shivers (the real kind).

Backstory: Many years ago, Marge Simon told me I was a horror poet.

Mind you, I don’t watch horror flicks. Go to a movie to scream? No thanks. This was pre-Zoom, so I gave Marge the email equivalent of “say whut?”

Fast forward: she convinced me my lived experience of scientific | clinical horror was something that could be celebrated.

So please meet my latest celebration of anthrax, a disease I know well. A disease that leaves its victims leaking dark fluid from unmentionable orifices. A disease that repeatedly escapes its permafrost tomb to infect both humans and animals.

My friends, this is my (blacktar) jam. This poem is a recipe for what to do | not to do should you encounter this particular ethereal shroud.

Good luck. Bon chance. удачи. Circumpolar nations, beware. (I’m enroute to my bespoken zombie apocalypse team as we speak/type.)

PS: Yes! Read the poem as three stanzas (upper left, lower left, italic section), then read it again ACROSS, with no stanza breaks. Because the endings differ by option, it leaves a different finish on your tongue…or in your maw.