i. The Ocean Gilded crests and metallic prisms are shattered now, transmuted now: emerald to tanzanite to sapphire to silver in accordance with nor’eastern alchemy. Like birth, the horizon becomes distinct bodies; you watch as sea splits free from sky. And there, between—a line across deep water: an ouroboros loop betwixt past, present, shore. Serpentine, it ribbons on the backs of swells, incorporeal and hazed. …
In a Lonely Place A dear friend recently said to me, “You get the thing where enough ‘lonely’ feels like ‘death.’” I’m not sure if it was meant to be a statement or a question, but it doesn’t matter: the answer is yes. Several months ago, a funeral director called me at midnight, asking me—pleading—to …
Mortals, my father says, come twice before they finally hitthe eternal rest button. By this he meant, a man is to two gravestones,that a man drowned in the slave ship with his dreams, his masterand the sailor can be gifted a chance to own a tomb in the afterlife.That the bodies burnt by a country …
A Man is Two Gravestones, by Blessing Omeiza Ojo Keep Reading »
In her forty-two years on God’s wide Earth, Gerda has read no books other than The Bible and Luther’s Small Catechism, but once, after Sunday service, she heard the sexton say that there are places where the dead traverse a river after death, paying a boatsman to ferry them across the water. Gerda knows such …
She took a dip in the healing watersof Lethe, rubbed the ashes awayuntil her arms were pale and gray with cold. She stepped out, and then began the procession of lotions andlate-night pomegranate trays.Deep breath in. She thinks to herself:The past doesn’t exist exceptfor what its ghost hand has etchedon my body. Breathe out. And …
In 1524, German Renaissance painter Barthel Bruyn the Elder completed a bridal portrait depicting an attractive young woman, Margaretha von Mochau, offering a single carnation to her new husband—a symbol of love and devotion. The painting is technically sound but, taken on its own, somewhat unremarkable. This work was probably commissioned, either by Margaretha von …
Light and night are falling from me,Death and day are opening on me… Who do you think you are, an artist? Here’s a story. When you were nothing more than an underfed slip of a girl, you carried home butter wrapped in newspaper. Unfolding it, you discovered—O serendipity!—reprinted poems of Tennyson. And thus, romantic appetite …
sea girls are wrestling red tigerfish while Margaretgathers upwet bones in a basketwith a howlof wind blowingcicada shadethrough dank and damp cornersof deep-mouthedocean caves her oars dip in and out of shallow water the hot wheezeof hazy, humid daysbreathe inbreathe outthe bathwater tidesroll inroll out sailing by shore, she waves at white skeletons in forced …
I My great-grandmother’s house didn’t diewhen she left. They took away her onlyring, the moldy zines, the chairs andcoffee tables she had collectedfrom green rubbish bins.When that failed, they took herghosts as well. II My mother slapped my arm when Itried to press a hand against the wall.It is bad manners to wake a housefrom …
My Great-Grandmother’s House, by Madalena Daleziou Keep Reading »
On the ferry to the island, I saw a man dressed as a jester. His image flashed into view in my side mirror as I sat there half-dozing behind the steering wheel. It was midday as we chugged along across the sound, and the sun glared off the smattering of pickups and SUVs and vans …
