kingsoftrain

Lucy Harlow grew up in England and Hong Kong, and currently lives in Philadelphia. Her poetry has appeared in Bracken and her fiction in Aliterate; she is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Princeton.

~*~

WHEN I WAS A RAINBOW

when I was a rainbow,
I was perfect nothing, nothing
of substance or spissitude, nothing
of particularity or place; I

only a truth at the intersection
of cloudbreak and sundown,
bent unseen athwart the sea spray; I
inevitable, invisible, voiceless and precise,
until, unsought, I find your eye.

now I am not truth but an array
of these intercessors, sense, and light is thick
and turns to dust bending in the arc of the eye.

our eye, now, my dear, my self, I lost in
vellum over crushed blood-red cochineal, and
oh, your soul all lampblack, cold as earth,

remembers when I was a rainbow, wonder-forged
rain-quenched, and new,
a…

all this can be yours
Isobel O’Hare
University of Hell, 2018

~

In these erasures of apologies and of the subsequent defenses of those apologies, Isobel O’Hare uses form to unearth a more correct embodiment of those who’ve been allowed to appear fed simply for the low fruit in their hands. It is a sparse and a serious endeavor buoyed by O’Hare’s witness, a thing so immediately patient that it makes peripheral the hologram reliquary such men and their acolytes use as the muscle of disappearance.

You will find no trace of novelty, no bread crumb for decoy, here. If belief is the original text of worship, this is the math that removes the equation. And gods are made to show their work.

~

reflection by Barton Smock

~

book is here:
https://university-of-hell-press.myshopify.com/products/all-this-can-be-yours-by-isobel-ohare

all proceeds from purchase go to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) & FUTURES WITHOUT VIOLENCE

{ SOFT FACTS }

we peck
in the darkroom
at the wrist
of a fish
our body language
proofing
the baby’s
dream

~

body

like some use an alias. fingerprints

manna
for hand.

I was dreaming I guess
in the face of brevity

of god’s glassrabbit ocean

~

at a time
unlike this

the father
is all
appetite

the chicken, gone
he points

to its ghost…

my mouth
is a church, my clock
a Sunday spider

in a dry
toilet

(I’m passionate about my grief)

your shadow

dolled up
in the yard

cyborg, minotaur

not once
did I watch
them sleep

~

I don’t know what she saw
in that jar

but she’s been hours

rubbing
my head
with a balloon…

dad switches out the bag on her head
and slips something in my mouth
while saying
mouse
in the dollhouse

I doze for a moment and see a priest

Elijah Tomaszewski received his MFA from Rosemont College and his BA from Susquehanna University. His work has been featured in Bright Sleep, Easy Street, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing, Jet Fuel Review, [apt], RiverCraft, and Tacenda Press. He lives in Philadelphia.

~

tradition

a child is not to sleep in a crib without a red string tied around a rung,
as this could invite the Evil Eye.

a child is not to be named before its birth,
as this could also invite the Evil Eye.

a child is not to be named for a living relative,
as this could confuse the Angel of Death.

a child is not to be named for a dead relative,
as this could further confuse the Angel of Death.

a child is not to be kissed on the feet,
as the dead are asked for forgiveness in this way.

a child…

Anna Scotti’s work appears occasionally in The New Yorker and other literary magazines. She was awarded the Mark Fischer Poetry Prize last year, and has also received the Pocataligo Poetry Prize, the AROHO Prize for short fiction, and other honors. Please visit http://www.annakscotti for more.

~The following poems originally appeared in The Comstock Review.~

/

TWELVE

So, there you are, cross-legged, patient fingers
working tangles from the silky plume of the dog’s tail,
mouth set in a stern love line exactly
like my grandmother’s. You’ve already learned that love
is mostly duty: gathering worms after every rainfall, laying
countless broken birds to rest in tissued boxes,
grim as any village preacher. You’ve dirt-
rimmed nails, scabbed knees – yet the new teacher’s
eyes can’t quite meet mine. Don’t let all that beauty
confuse you: there will be a boy who does not
love you, then a man. And someday…