Category: Starlight (Issue XVI)

The Light Fantastic

Frances Boyle

I am new to this dancing, no more
the child who darts like rain
in and out of the circle. A woman
now, I follow the others, trip along
as grandmother shapes the steps,
shift and bend like she does, begin

again. We young women shimmer
in motion. Grandmother leads,
we all follow fascinated, take up
grandmother’s dance, we echo
the moon, little lights in our steps
we shift sideways, bend waists.

In the row following grandmother,
I am learning her steps, making
each move shiny as I can, side turn,
step, clap and bend. Sun-shadow
pivot, bend and bow, side and back
forward now, with the shifting beams.

And the mothers weave their steps fantastic
no longer following but embroidering
dazzling threads in steps and hops, shimmies
and shudders. Yes, sometimes, a shudder
of colour will unstitch one of the mothers’
prisms within the dance’s warp and weft.

Variety in how we quilt the world, needing
the comfort of cloth. Conjure a cake box,
crushed, a lindy hop, tango tour
de force, two-step, or flamenco clap
and stomp. Step and sidestep, step and slide,
shift spectrum a nudged inch towards new.

We heed the slide of lightning bolt,
its rusty screech and creak. Grandmother
dances beside us, with us, close enough
for comfort, approximately equal
but never identical. But, close enough
for jazz, we improvise starbursts freely.

Frances Boyle

U n f o l d

Kristiana Reed

 See the stars
                    watch the moon
u n f o l d
        ​tuck
​        yourself in.
 
Bedtime wishes
shooting star promises
you are too little
        ​to be bold
but the stars
        ​glisten
as daggers do
and tiny hands find sharpness
​        they cut
s l i c e
the innocence away
​        asunder
        ​tuck
        ​yourself in.
 
Bedtime stories
of dragons, of maidens
you are too girl
​        to be bold​
and so
        ​you burn
watch the moon
and let your ​        wings
​u n f o l d
look at you
tattered as ribbons
​        as ashes
a corpse woman
of the girl     ​they wanted
you to be
​        too bold ​    now
​        too old​​        now
​        too dragon ​   now
 
sharp teeth and talons,
scaly skin and belly heart warmth
​        of the Earth’s core and kin,
go ​        on
​        tuck
​        yourself in.

Kristiana Reed

Self Portrait as Luna

Annika Gangopadhyay

The clouds whisper my name at dusk—
        I am born after the sun dies, out of silence.
The softness covers my shoulders, wraps itself around my body
        until I am a shadow. Below me 
phantoms burn in the dark
        and men cut my hair into constellations. I still see the silver        
        sickles in my sleep, 
                caving inward,
        a field of blades cold against my skin. Lovers curl into crescents 
ablaze with emptiness on the grass,
                and the world is full of waning lullabies, 
        black skies,
                clouds falling at my feet like dust. 
See how I cradle this burgeoning wasteland,
        this cold inferno.
Milk pours out of my skin where the stars should have been,
    and I gently rock the earth back and forth, 
back and forth,
        before the blades nd my throat, 
before a soft red cuts through the sky,
        before the constellations are ablaze, 
Before I die at dawn.

Annika Gangopadhyay