A Magazine of Many Arts

By Jordan Kurella

Choose words like thread
Only the brightest will do
The boldest are too brittle
Too weathered for the force of his storm
 
Weave words, cast away suitors
Wait for your love to return
Work long at this tapestry
& then cover yourself in its conversation
 
Each night, pick it apart
Search for the thread
(the skein?) of where you went wrong
 
As it was you (always)
You who went wrong
 
Then return
Rescue your work in the morning
Say "I love you" over the telephone
Over morning coffee
With a brush of the hand on his back
Over the shuttle
Over the wake of his ship
 
Your suitors still flood you with gifts
So many hearts in so many colors 
Three different gifs of showering confetti
An old photo of a girl on a skateboard, yes, Killing It
 
"This is you," they say
"This is meant for you," they say
So you weave them in
And you breathe them out
Another shuttle across the threads
Another tick in the loom
 
But no, this is not you
You wait for the one you love to return
Tapestry unwoven, picked apart
Conversation managed: wrongs righted, rights wronged
 
These threads were broken against his chest
Tested, over and over, with devotion
He is ready to be met
Take your words to his thunder
 
Say, "I love you," again
Do not flinch as his maelstrom rises up
And swallows your truth whole

Ursula Whitcher

Sue's grandkid asks, "Will it be hard for you, learning a different language?"
and Sue says, "Honey, Fargo is America," but you say, "Oh, I've done it before."
The new boxes were Sue's—black Amazon arrows, that navy apron
like an eared robot—and the books go in, The Bread Bible,
the Greek Bible, the free Koran from the booth at the fair.
You have liquor boxes from the last move, the housing crash;
you kept the Bacardi ones, because you felt
some kinship with the bat. Linens in those, mostly, and clothes
that mostly fit. "It's been ten years," Sue says. "You don't seem
to have aged a day." You smile and pat your hair. You've bleached
the roots, of course. Dot-com boxes next, Pets.com,
FreeTShirts4Ever. You wrap the Far Side coffee mug
in tissue, and the teacup with roses
you say was your grandmother's.
Liquor boxes again, and you're packing the vases
you never managed to break. The tape crinkles and tears. You miss
the old, heavy Scotch-brand stuff. You miss the twine,
the crates, the boxes for each hat, your steamer trunk
with its heavy latch. "Do they speak English in Alaska?"
another child asked, once. Before that, "Is it hard
to learn American?" You miss the straw you stuffed
around the teapot, the Book of Common Prayer, all that time
you spent at graveyards, leaving roses, with their stems
wrapped in green ribbon, back when you still thought
you'd end there, packed under stone and grass.