|
SCARIFICATION (Ife)
by David McAleavey after seeing African sculpture in a Richmond museum From its leather pouch, withdraw your grandfather's obsidian-flake knife. Repair, if needed, the lashings holding stone in its split-wood handle. You could use a bronze, but for this, the old way's better. Study the soft boy before you. In two years he may marry. By then your work will be done. Each long slice down his face will have healed, scabbing then scarring into parallel lines like vines, like a spread-out waterfall. Asleep, his face will look like layered rock. You pass over his eyes, his lips. He must see the weapon, accept what hurts him. After the first cuts dividing forehead and nose you pat a mash on to help the princely furrow heal. Each full moon he returns, larger and stronger more beautiful and fierce. When the lines nuzzle in next to his ears it is over. You can do nothing more to prepare or protect him. |
PHOTOGRAPH by Anita Scharf |
|
BRUNCH
by Randy M. Taylor The juice from your eyes drips into a glass like milk. Your heart and lifesong fill a saucer And your cat laps it for breakfast. The blood from under your fingernails Pours into a small glass fit for V8 And you sip, But only taste the bitterness on your lips. The white puss from your blisters Is the meringue on a slice of chilled lemon pie That you mush around with your fork Before you lick the plate. If there is a cookie It would be your past A deep, moist oatmeal raisin That you crumble on the floor with the dirt. But you savor the rest. |
LEGS by Myles Boisen |
|
* by Simon Perchik The doctor had a name for it, your palm wets itself, folding her favorite dress with a vague sound from the ceiling though she will get used to a rain that belongs somewhere else that doesn't care you're undressed have something to do with the cold and the smoke-blackened sheets pouring over her shoulders and legs –you have become a place close by stand here naked in front a mirror with nothing more to take away. |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
home | Table of Contents | archive