A Magazine of Many Arts

Jennifer Crow

for Anne

At first glance, the two don’t have much in common:
the places cast into darkness, and the objects,
rituals, locations which bring the divine close. Yet hope
grows in the interstices where fact hasn’t crowded it
out of sight, the liminal moments that drift
like a feather from the clouds, perhaps an angel
or maybe a hawk striking the killing blow.
This juxtaposition sometimes jars, the sharp edges
of the world ground to smoothness over a lifetime
of doubt—yet we take comfort even in the hawk’s
fierce triumph, the bloodied talon clenched tight
on its morsel of flesh, our own hunger sated
for a moment when we recall the fragile and broken.
We too have crouched, shattered, in the shadows
and waited to catch the eyes of gods.

Daniel Ausema

The architecture in the library of whispers
holds onto every breath half spoken,
records them in its own flourishes and whimsies.
The shelves hum with sighs and insinuations,
and innuendos flutter among the rafters

On lonely days patrons
follow the wafting memory of a loved one’s words
among the stacks, tracking its position
by a decimal system built on scent.
Once found, the whisper expands, surrounds
the patron, the shelves, the world,
granting the aural bones for life to flesh out.

On tense days, officials come to track down
scarcely-spoken sedition
and clues to ancient crimes.
Only by luck do they find either

The gothic waterspouts outside
spill their secrets only when it rains
but are said to hold the oldest
and least understood of the library’s mysteries.

Robin Wyatt Dunn

Come with, Come with, down into Faerie,
Under the slip and sides of the glade;
Be showered with gifts.

"She bled from her mouth," the digger said,

"and we all stopped along the ditch,
and lay down our spades.

"Her skin was white as death,
and we stood and followed her into the trees.

"The barks of the elms curled under the sun,
whose rays turned blue,
and her teeth, into black chunks.

"Eamon said we would not return,
But I knew we would,
Because there was blood under her feet:
She had been weakened,
And needed our help to slip back into Faerie.

"We stood under a secret eye
and slid her limbs under the earth.
She shuddered like a crone
under her maiden sky.

"Afterwards, we could not find our spades.
I was out of work for three weeks,
& my hands they stayed cold all Spring.

"Eamon got a look in his eye then.
And I told him
'Go South, to the sea;
go into it;
and away from here.'
She still wanted him, you see.

"But he would not go.
One midnight I saw him by the well,
circling like a wounded crow.
I cried out,
But my mouth could make no sound.

"In the morning he was dead;
drowned. But not in the well.
His lungs was full of her bright blood.

"In digging, some times we bestir the edges
of their earths;
And sometimes I have told a tale I knew not to be true,
So that they would not return before winter."

Jennifer Crow

I still had hope, in the brief bright nights
before the faery mound opened
and spat you out. It is possible to be patient
with a memory, to sit quietly
with that empty place in the room. Alone,
I painted your image on my days,
until the damned coughed you up again,
blinking, into the world’s shining eye.
What can I do now, with the tattered remnants
of you? What can I do with a love that flutters
like a broken-winged bird in a cage, unfit
even for sacrifice? 
                                  And for all that, I find
I cannot release your empty shell,
cannot leave it on a beach for someone else
to find and cherish. I cover the mirror
and sweep the wreckage of my old life
to the door, but the crooked shadow
you’ve become stretches a little longer
every evening, and my own heart shrinks,
a once healthy organ collapsing
under the weight. If I could hold you,
soul and body—if I could pull you
from this living death . . . But you are no longer mine,
even as you grind the last shreds of my hope
beneath your heel, unthinking, your gaze
fixed on a distant hill.

Eva Papasoulioti

The spirits of the lake warned you of her.
East wind blows from the northern side of the shore,
croons a secret in the veins of the leaves, a path
shaping the undercurrents
                                  directly to your mouth.

They say you can protect yourself.
Burn the woodstove all night, boil
eucalyptus bark until you can’t smell
your own sweat, and roast fresh chestnuts.
Sink them in the water, picture the morning.
Think of why she should spare you.
Drink them.
                        Think of why she’s after you.

She comes after moonrise,
steals your teeth,
burns the tips of your hair,
leaves bite marks in your pillow.
The whispers of old blood on your hands
echo in your head; reverberations of a time past.
                                   They’re all in your head.

Come morning you take the summer sun in
but the warmth slips from your boney fingers
lake water under your feet, in your lungs.
                                       The spirits welcome you.