“the women turn pages slowly, so slowly
unsure if that is the vest Katya knitted for uncle
before he went for milk, never came back
each numbered photograph a too-bright gasp of light
the book, a first step with each mass grave
do you recognize this apron? this belt? these boots?”
“Paper gowns are not as soft as cloth gowns are not as soft
as silk as milk which is only soft until it sours”
“But still it was done,
the last thing, really, they made
together. When the morphine
wasn’t enough, I said to her,
Think of those lilies,
all the colors they’ll bring.”
“In her old life, Grammy shelved books via the Dewey Decimal,
never imagined she would need a YouTube video on how to probe a vent.
So much science reduced to the withstanding of unease,
an ISA Brown hen upside down under her arm.”
“I looked myself over, the version of me across the table. I was a year younger then, but I was in rough shape. January was obviously only shaving once every few days. His face was covered in that awful black stubble. His hair was a mess. His eyes were tired and vacant behind the glasses. He slouched in the chair, thinking me over. He tapped his fingers on the table, the gears turning, trying to figure out what to say.
‘This doesn’t make sense,’ he said. ‘It’s not possible that we’re trans. It shouldn’t be possible.’
I nodded sympathetically. ‘I get what you’re saying. I understand. Yet here we are.'”
CALYX Celebrates Fire, Fury, and Resilience with Oregon Artist Betty LaDuke Please join us in ekphrastic appreciation of the artist Betty LaDuke, whose most recent exhibition, Fire, Fury, and Resilience: Totem Witnesses and Turtle Wisdom, will be at the Corvallis Museum from October 7, 2022 – January 22, 2023. The exhibit opens with an artist’s…
“Two women in hijabs and abayas approach us. One of the women asks, ‘How long will this be going on?’ ‘It’s the community that’s doing this,’ Zenzele answers. ‘So, I guess, as long as the community keeps coming. This is all different people. There’s no one group organizing it.’ The draped women speak to one another in a language that sounds like the wind over the surface of water before they smile at us, nod, and walk on.”
“You nudged me with a whisper,
to rise an hour before azan,
from under the thick
of dove feathers warm with your love
for God, and me, the musty grandchild”
“Hideous beauty, I shake you loose
from a cushion of the wicker chair
where, it seems, you’ve gone to die.”
“There are many versions of the American Dream, I want to tell my parents. The one involving a large house with a picket fence and two-car garage is just one of them. Just as there are many versions of your daughter. There’s a version that prays four times a day and recites the Quran. There is a version that enjoys hanging out with friends, including men, on Saturday nights with cans of beer and board games. There is a version that fasts during the month of Ramadan. There is a version that gets pepperoni on her pizza during the rest of the year.”