Andrea Moorhead
A Kind of Unsung Novel
Strengthening the wind on page two, the column width has been reset, I’ll slip in ten more spaces, the one caught under your breath, a sweet mint light when you speak, but page three is wandering out of control, the syllables jammed together, no one is speaking now, hushed, huddled, hungry for the next paragraph, but a rustling in the rocks, a stirring in the brush by the back door, nobody remembered to cut it back last fall and it grew and grew, multiplied its seed, threw out tendrils every time it rained, and when page three appeared, everyone gathered around, around what, gathered around where or how, but you don’t know if the stones are slippery tonight, or if the waiting waves have frozen onto the black, shiny sky.
Following the Threads
for Rose
But the disappearance didn’t happen in that manner, it was a matter of changing rooms and
changing windows and changing staff, but the disappearance didn’t follow the usual course, it wasn’t laid out in that way, she said, not in that way, but along a vibration leading to a storm, a subtle detection of waves, more a fluttering than a sliding, less a cascade than an abrupt fall, tubes and
wires, monitors and the windows were brilliant, shining night, shining day, she didn’t see it happen like that, she wasn’t there, she didn’t have anything but a telephone, voices arriving, voices departing, and the disappearance took place fifty miles from where she was, fifty miles and she couldn’t see the road, couldn’t imagine the pinpoint of light marking that spot, because the disappearance made no sense, it wasn’t a matter of tubes and monitors and people, it didn’t make any sense, and faces come and faces go, despite the refraction of light, the reflection of mood, the kindliness or indifference of others, the color blue, the color red, no color, all colors, and she waited by the phone, waited for the voices to come, the voices to go, the night to complete its cycle, the day swinging in before she
realized that the disappearance had happened, and not in that manner, and not before the voices or after.
Where the light had struck the ground
It was a flower she planted many years ago, a small yellow iris in the back corner of the yard, there weren’t many houses then, the back street was mostly field and the lots hadn’t been surveyed. She wanted the iris to flourish and the back corner of the yard was often moist, but sheltered from wind. She moved large stones into a semi-circle, the only formal touch to her garden. The early snows
caught on the fence, ran the rails with streaming light. When Christmas came, she strung tiny blue lights on the fence and the iris glowed a soft petal-light. As she became old and infirm, the garden
went wild, and the iris disappeared. Before she died, we found the iris again. It had spread out
beyond the stones and all along the fallen fence. A garden of wind and rain, blue snows and the searing heat of an inland July.
Split-Screens
It was a white night, sirens in the distance, no one else out, dimness translucent, cobalt patches
where eyes linger, and the rain against the windshield, you are speaking too softly, there’s no need to whisper, no one else is out, it’s a white night just like before, when we left abruptly, pulled the car
along behind us, windshield sweeping the rain, you haven’t looked at this in years, landscape of
divine presence, the sight of coral and turquoise light, it’s the ocean far off, absence of horizons,
eyes lining up the trees, silken in the waves, you’d better fasten your shirt, even wool lets in the cold
if you don’t tighten it up just right, feet paused, the car still behind us.
Watching the Mind
It could start again if we aren’t careful, if we don’t listen every time the window rattles or the floorboards creak, it’s almost a pattern of recognition now, a fluttering of the pulse before
something abrupt, and there isn’t any conclusion to be drawn, no images adequate to describe or fix this fluid impression, wind vapor or mental haze, it’s all the same now, it could start again if we
aren’t careful, if we don’t try to recall the first steps, the solemn progression of rock to sand, uneasy swaying of the water at night; the cabin is perched on the low cliff, it could start again if we don’t
close the shutters when it storms, pull in the boat, it can’t stay in the water when lightning is so
close, it can’t stay near us although we might want that security, a sense of anchors pulled quickly, ropes taut and then again, it could start again if we aren’t careful, if we don’t listen and watch,
wonder and let out the wild tigers before dawn, before the solemn procession to sanity can begin again, circling the night with its absolutes, its dainty preoccupations, its wanton falseness, bleached
and scaled, and we take a last run with the white wolves before we cast off, in the showering incandescence of a million strikes.
Andrea Moorhead, born in Buffalo, New York, is the publisher of the prestigious international magazine, Osiris. Her most recent book is The Carver's Dream (Red Dragon Fly Press). Her poems have appeared in journals such as Abraxas, Great River Review, The Bitter Oleander, Phoenix, Poetry Salzburg Review, and elsewhere.