Author: juliette

Necromancy

Jennifer Wilson

I find it difficult to say things plainly, so I’ll just say that my mother’s hands were always full of bones.

She would hold them close and clutch them, bringing them to her chest when they were cold. And children with their flesh and their tears never phased her, their warmth not a thing to her mind. They just gave her good reason to relish the cold touch of bones and forego the future, enchanting the past and every power of death upon them as they sharpened themselves upon us.

Our marrow was so rich and warm. And our mother would eat it, unthinking, kissing the skeleton in a suck like an infant crying out that Mother Death and Our Lady of the Shadows never loved her so well as this. 

She made us hollow. She made us naked, ripping to rags even our bedclothes as emblems to bind and beatify the dead.

O I wish, O Mother, in knots and offerings, that these votives make pretty bows of my motives. O ghosts, give me strength to withhold. Mother, make me not weak to be eaten. Give me death for myself to control. 

And so her spells cast us as Others, unnecessary for her needs. Her adored drama, the sheer vastness and blankness of her bones bore us through. And, light as birds but flightless, we flew – the hollowness of our hearts coming through.

The fall to the floor seemed so much farther than our featherweight bones could forestall – and yet we met the earth with ease, barely bruised, free to wing wide through our down.

Jennifer Wilson

If Nothing Else

Jessalyn Johnson

but the general faults in the solar system
or the notes in the margins providing insight
to temporary notions of faded ideas;
if nothing else but if the rain reversed
or if a collection of dust as a force of nature
were to become profoundly instrumental 
the way children solve problems 
and adults solve themselves
or the half life of something with a shelf life
gives away nothing but numbers.
Potential may erupt like a geyser 
to show off like a prize
and harness like energy or another powerful force
for spinning in circles is a creative transit
that leaves with no destination 
but arrives someplace new
in a universe that exists only in theory
yet allows lightning bugs to glow.
So if nothing else, there is one last iris
or else, and only or else, is there nothing.

Jessalyn Johnson

Soar

Sara Kelly

Kindness shoves little feet
forcefully into the Earth
during take off,
and soars into the sanctuary
of an open heart.

Humility rides
seeds of dandelions,
not unlike knights
charging into battle,
chanting repeatedly,
“love thy neighbor.”

We throw caution
to the wind,
But, alas, it falters,
for fear of the potential fall.

If we release love
into the atmosphere,
will it fly high into the sky,
and sing a song of hope?
Will it return to solid ground,
and reassure us of
all the beauty
that surrounds us?

Sara Kelly

Halycon

Hilda Coleman (Jupiter)

I am kindly haunted by
the colors that dress my mind
of purple,
pink, and yellow,
a swirl of the trix-yogurt
I used to like as a kid

at 6am today
the morning was fluorescent,
intrinsically connected to
the city,
the palettes of color
aligned to resemble art

it was simple.
it was just like when we hiked this
together, except now

I was mixed
into the sky,
adopted by nature
All I needed were wings.

As I hiked that mountain myself
my hand laid on my chest,
echoing vibrations,
blood pumping
thump, thump,
My breathe shortened, then
rose up again,
like a thermometer
up and up
I was so alive.
my wrist beeped, as it read

“200 BPM”

and all I could think about
was how alive I could feel,
without you.

Hilda Coleman (Jupiter)