Portrait of Myself as a Map
Ashly LaRosa
You pull over, lean over
and dig me out of the glove compartment.
I'm mangled, crinkled, my
corners exhausted and torn.
You spread me out,
look at me, study me–
harsh brown– you refamiliarize yourself.
Your hands trace through the rough and the
wet, your knuckles touch the curves, your
palm in the Atlantic.
You bring me closer to your face as you rub
your finger along the country, you find
the spot.
You fold me up, put me back right beneath
old registration papers,
turn to her, passenger side,
kiss her on the dimple.
You close, lock the glove compartment
and begin to roll away from the rest stop rocks.
Neil Armstrong
Tess Dudek
When John Glenn heard
of Neil Armstrong's death.
he sighed the sigh
of those who have breathed
in a vaccum.
An old man, he saw the
rise and fall of the moon each day
as a taunting reminder
of his immortality.
There is no heaven when you've
wiped the celestial dust from
the corners of your eyes
and felt the unearthly grit beneath
your cumbersome boots.
He shouts at it–
throws stones into the night,
knowing full well
the 238,000 miles
and some change,
and the physics of grief
against the sky.
No more nighttime phone calls
asking, "Do you miss the
Weightlessness–
or do you like the
Heaviness of hands
at the end of your arms?"
And the old man
thinks about how up there,
the operation room
would have been the inside
of a white glittering glove
with scalpels like stars
gleaming as they floated through the air
pinging as they gently collided.
And the heart –
the heart that would have lifted itself
from his old friend's chest,
in a glittering reverse rainstorm
of perfectly round drops of blood
and floated,
pumping tiny thunder,
glistening
for everyone to see.
Suffer Well, an excerpt
Sean O'Donovan
A sudden inhale and the familiar sight of the wobbling ceiling fan. I've woken to this sight for the last six months since I moved into my aunt and uncle's small home in the suburbs of Savannah. Every once in a while I sit and watch the blades teeter back and forth, feeling the air stagger down to touch my face. Some inanimate, mind-numbing connection. To think, a ceiling fan could touch me, pique my thoughts, or exhume buried emotions. There is nothing internal or reflective in a ceiling fan. It spins and spins with nowhere to go, just moving air around. Maybe it would hope to fall, or prays to be shut off. What would a ceiling fan pray to? An electrician? Some higher form of cooling device, an air conditioner, central air? Maybe just the natural wind outside, a freedom, a transcendence. Trapped in its physicality, kept living through the grid, the power supply. Would I like to be a ceiling fan?