Response from Eschatology

Dear Mr. Ellis,

Thank you for sending us “Memory”. We appreciate the chance to read it. Unfortunately, we are going to have to pass on it as this time.

Thanks again. Best of luck in your writing career.
Sincerely,
Bruce Priddy
Eschatology Journal

Haunting

I.

This sloth thing takes over in the mornings.
It turns off all my alarms before I even know what’s happening.

My neighbors assure me: no one comes in or out
unless it’s you. But I refuse to believe

that I could be this hideous sloth thing.

 

II.

I don’t know how it happened,
I don’t know why it happened,
but I got toothpaste encrusted—
white-limed—into the cuticle of my thumb.

Next to a hangnail,
athwart dead and drying skin:
wrinkles crags, freckles
all impending.

So I’m scratching at it,
rekindling the scent of mint
and dentist-recommended whitening power.
Outside, the snow collecting.

 

III.

Have you ever watched a dog
watch the air?
Particles must move quite a bit.

Aisle 4, Porter, Indiana

It’s as simple as the slip of the lips.
Some say tongue, but I’ve seen
everything
wrapped in plastic.
Supermarket cold-cuts, sweating
chilled, sedentary.
And maybe
they tell tall tales at night, when
the pale tile floors are no longer
lighted—the bologna to the ham.
I know they’re made up.
But
That’s where I heard this one:
a daughter and mother hurry
two little steps fitting comfortably
inside mother’s stride. Her sneakers
blinked on fire, flashing red
at the heels, like an emergency.

And by the slip of the lips, mind
you,
mother calls out to the girl,
who is falling behind and unable
to keep up…
“Hurry up, Claire.”
But Claire isn’t right. No, now
the steel-clattered cart, full of
bread, eggs, all things white—
crystalline. Unbroken.
Claire
is not her name.
From my post
by the produce, I can’t tell if
the mother knows her sin, or if
the daughter’s chest splinters…

My tongue feels heavy; it needs
to be swallowed or caressed, told
everything’s alright because
a name is the first thing
we are given, and the
only thing we have.

No Snow, Just Rain

Rooftop apex, shingled out, down.
No sun—no sky.
I, crouched, hunched over, peaking at gravity
from the highest point.
No snow—no fear.

Leafless trees cackle as skeletons,
brown, soaked in gray.

Posed at the edge, I, a seabird twisted,
eyes diving for fish.
No scales—just concrete.
Fingers curled at the edge,
white like talons. Ready to press.
I’m ready to swim. To taste gray
earth, which rocks me like the sea.

Bird Hymn

And so the murmuration of starlings
descended upon the house.

They swept at its roof, shingles, and siding
like a corrosive liquid—cawing, morose.

When all had landed, packed feathers in tow,
atop the roof, lining the gutters, brimming the chimney, a silence came.

A swelling in the atmosphere, the absence of sound
somewhere far off, a barometer ticking back the visage of time.

But from the door comes a man, as it always is.
He is clad in a tattered robe—coarse face, lines engraved

as though he were carved of limestone.
With a bow, he greets the gray sun and black birds.

Their whole heads twitch when they watch him;
their eyes are refractive.

They have made a deal, the man and the starlings.
In the mornings, they will come and sing him a song.

And the man will wake, take comfort, remember
the arid tinge of breath, and continue his ritual.

In the evenings, the man will come and climb their trees.
He will tuck each of them in and leave the nest undisturbed.

Some nights, the ones the starlings prefer,
he, too, will sing a song.

It will be a whisper, a resonance containing the DNA
of all life—nether, unfurling, as he climbs down and goes to sleep.

Response from Crimson Umbrella

Dear Eric,

Thank you for submitting your work to the Crimson Umbrella Review. We have carefully considered your submission, and do not feel that “Answers” is a good fit for CUR at this time. We really liked the idea, but felt it needed a little more development, particularly making the accident a little less subtle (if the poem does describe an accident). If it is an accident, there was also a lack of trauma that could be introduced to make it a little more clear. The subtlety could work well if we just got a little bit more to go off of. We hope that you will consider submitting your work again in the future, whether it be a re-working of “Answers” or other original work.

Best,

The Editors

Crimson Umbrella Review

Turin, Soldier

that egg there
down-looked, shadow long,
white. on its side.
(as if an egg could stand up
against curvature and gravity.)

red loam, charcoal sky.
light from somewhere,
pressing down, not
shining or warming.
felt in friction
—concussive drums—
between you, me,
the space between
—off in the distance—
you, me, and the ground.

headwind. resistance.

but that egg,
all its potential energy
coupled with a black-lilac hardback,
coarsely bound: If on a Winter’s Night
a Traveler.

goddamned if Private Taylor didn’t
fry up his shiny rations and yours.
showin’ off this mouth pleasing
omelet, unaware the definition
of the word “ration.”

down the line, another singing:
douceur de vivre…