POETRY BY REBECCA CUTHBERT

Rebecca Cuthbert writes dark fiction and poetry. She loves ghost stories, witchy women, Gothic settings, and anything that involves nature getting revenge. Her books include In Memory of Exoskeletons (2024 Imadjinn Award, Best Poetry Collection), Creep This Way (2024 Golden Scoop Award nominee), Self-Made Monsters (2025 Imadjinn Award Finalist, Best Story Collection), Down in the Dark Deep Where the Puddlers Dwell, and Six O’Clock House & Other Strange Tales.

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ALL THE HAVOC WE NEVER MEANT TO WREAK

We slept so little
but dreamed so much;
Watching, silent,
weighted by waiting.

No one asked us
to make those wishes;
no one told us
we shouldn’t dare.

Sometimes agency is small:
borrowed coins
tossed into fountains,
stolen coins
pounded
into graveyard dirt.

We planted wild parsnip
but poison hemlock grew—

so many dead
we’re expected
to mourn.

PENELOPE’S RESIGNATION

“Gods, how easy it was to be faithful
to a missing man,” she said, pulling
on a Virginia Slim.
“Like saying ‘I have a boyfriend,’
and for a minute, for a few years,
they believed it—
those soft and strutting suitors.”

She blows a slow smoke ring,
picks up
her gin & tonic.

“Do you know what I did?
What I got to do?”
She slurps.
Burps.

“Slept in on Saturdays. Learned to sword fight.
Played Solitaire and got comfortably fat.” She pats
her belly.
Frowns.
Drains her drink
and rattles the ice.

“It wasn’t disbelief, when he came
home—no rapturous
fear that it was too good
to be true.
It was denial.
Hope, really, that it wasn’t him,
that I could
keep up my no-strings
monogamy to a ghost.”

She mashes out her cigarette,
taps her softpack,
lights another.

“But all parties end, don’t they?”
Her eyes drift to the kitchen
window.

“And we all return
to our longings.”

BEHIND THESE CASTLE DOORS

The pauper (who was no
long-lost prince) stumbled
upon the forlorn castle
shrouded in fog,
turrets crumbling—
and wondered if there were riches left
to plunder.

The drawbridge presented an obstacle—
not insurmountable given that
he mounted it with only a scraped
knee and a twisted
ankle upon landing hard
within the overgrown courtyard.

Into the castle’s darkened
arches he hobbled,
optimistic (as all paupers are)
that prosperity was
just behind the next door or
one shady devil’s soul-deal
away.

He wandered beneath water-
ruined life-sized portraits
hung crooked from flaking-plaster
foyer walls, stutter-steps echoing
on moss-stained checkerboard
marble floors.

The mildewed countenance
of a grand lady spoke:
“Upstairs” she said and winked, “fourth door on the left.”
“Not that way,” said another painting,
this one of a mustached lord.
“Try the banquet hall, past that suit of armor, turn left.”
But “Uh-uh,” said the ripped mouth
of a little girl with a fat sheep, “they lie; find the ballroom,
it houses what you seek.”

And thinking portraits shouldn’t talk
but believing children wouldn’t lie,
the pauper resumed his quest, now
for the ballroom, giddy with hope,
feet quicker on his way to salvation.

He pictured golden cups,
jeweled thrones;
even a cast-off Cinderella slipper
could buy a meal
if he ate cheap.

After another half hour and several
cobwebs to the face,
the pauper pushed open
a set of double doors—gilted
to the hilt, carved wood
handles cool in his
calloused hands.

Inside: splendor.

Translucent couples dancing
as a dozen players played.
“Welcome,” said a queenly figure
in a crimson robe,
“have some wine, take a girl,
take your pick,
have your pleasure.”

And the pauper bowed,
did as he was bid, swallowed
his scream when he saw
the ladies’ faces melt away—
grinning skulls in their place,
but their trim waists
still twirled,
and the port tasted like
swigs of a liquid spiced
heaven,
so he closed his eyes tight
gripped a bony hand tighter
and matched his
limping steps
to the tempo
of the dance.