Picture of Us

Picture of Us by Joshua Kulseth for Rachel Anthony It was my birthday and we stood—you, beautiful, youthful; me, spectacled, unable for the life of me to comb my hair correctly—in the lobby of a hibachi steak house. After, I remember we were all over each other in the cramped cabin of my truck, in a field, on the deck of your pool. I don’t remember you crying, though maybe you wanted to. And I wasn’t helping, being myself. We’d weather a few more months’ worth of disasters together: I took and used what you gave and after, always remorse. Rinse, repeat. It’s funny now, sort of—nothing we could make last, at least. I keep the picture as a bookmark in Auden’s Collected Poems, placed now facing ‘Lullaby,’ so it’s like the two of us are reading poems together— lay your sleeping head, my love, human on my faithless arm—Auden knew what affection costs us in headache, heartache; ours no different, so it’s fitting to leave us there, in his care. We do look happy, standing by the lobby couches, against each other bright in the camera flash, under lights, my class-ringed finger gripping your shoulder, yours my waist. The other day I saw you engaged, saw the picture of the two of you closer than us, faces touching, smiles honest. He looks nice, and you, happy. But between us: what we said, how we suffered, it’s all still there, though better as memory (we’d have been very unhappy together); better like this: posed always in affection, in the dark of leftover words Poetry Home Art by Ellen June Wright

Misunderstandings

Nonfiction Home Art by Collin Scott Misunderstandings by Emily Hall “Yet here I am, on my way, arm raised in greeting, and then I am no more.” Gabriel Josipovici,  Goldberg: Variations I. Before my husband Fausto and I made the fourteen-hour drive to Maine, he asked if we were going to scatter our dog’s ashes in the ocean there. I paused for a minute because the only time we took Nicholas to the beach he had loved it; but I couldn’t imagine saying goodbye while we watched the current take him away from us, so I said “no.”We were packing for our trip, unsure what to bring because we rarely took vacations. It was a splurge meant to help me grieve the dual losses of Nicholas and my academic career. After fourteen years of teaching college English, I had burned out, but there were no funeral rites to acknowledge my job’s end. In fact, I had spent the last year as an adjunct, so there wasn’t even an office party, just an email from my department chair saying that he thought he understood and an essay that I was writing about non-linear time and waving in Gabriel Josipovici’s novel,  Goldberg: Variations, that I buried in the bottom drawer of my desk. When Fausto and I finished packing, we got into our car, laughing nervously as we chose a playlist. We had tough-to-say-the-least childhoods, so we kept giving each other sidelong glances and asking  if we were allowed to do this , allowed to drive for days, stopping for bookstores, donuts, and coffees along the way, because we still couldn’t fathom making these choices for ourselves although we were nearly forty. Two days later, when we crossed into Maine, a place neither of us had ever seen, we waved at the welcome sign and felt a little breathless, like we’d climbed to the top of the world and knew we’d still have to come down. II. On the second night of our trip, around midnight, Fausto and I went out to our little balcony so we could hear the ocean crash. But as we settled into the faux-wicker chairs and oriented ourselves towards the sea, we realized the waves were drowned out by the sounds of birds we couldn’t identify. Their calls pierced the air, whooping and whistling unseen, while we sat in darkness so deep I hoped my body would melt away until I was just a pale pair of ears absorbing the bird cries. And as I imagined myself disappearing, I remembered a flight we took years before to visit Fausto’s family in Florida. The plane was cramped and overcrowded, but the baby on the other side of our row didn’t seem to notice. From her mother’s lap, she waved a dimpled hand at Fausto, who sat nearest to her in his aisle seat. He waved back, so she excitedly began a series of poses, holding each one for only a few seconds. She rested her chin on her hand, then shyly laid her face against her mother’s shoulder before leaping up to wave at Fausto again, her face blooming into a joyful grin. We chuckled, and her mother laughed in surprise, as if she had never seen her baby do such a thing. The rows immediately before and after us took notice, and soon they were also watching her and giggling softly. Across these rows, our laughter fused and lifted upwards like a cloud, even as our bodies sat belted in tight seats. III. In the days after Nicholas died, I kept asking Fausto when I would be done grieving. I wanted to pinpoint grief’s place in my body and root it out. “I don’t think it works like that,” Fausto would gently explain. But I wanted a hard date and decided that my grief would be over when I didn’t cry for three days in a row. The first day was always the easiest: I would get through it by weeding the garden or cleaning my kitchen cupboards. On the second, I’d feel the urge to pull up one of Nicholas’s many photos, but I would put my phone in another room and pick up a book instead. On the third day, I’d be triumphant, convinced that I had conquered my grief, and I’d boldly tell Fausto that I was ready for another pet because I had already weathered the worst of it. Then, I’d go for my nightly walk and see my neighbors who’d wave at me cheerfully as their own dogs trotted beside them. In response to their greetings, which always felt carefree and content, fat tears would roll down my cheeks, and I’d rewind the clock to give myself three more days. IV. In Cape Elizabeth, the surf was rough, as were the winds, but the ducks rose and dove unbothered. Fausto and I were watching them from our perch, a bright red picnic table outside of the Lobster Shack where we were eating greasy trays of clams and fries—we didn’t come for the food, but for the view. Now that we had finished eating, we were staring at the vast stretch of rocks before us, and when my eyes finally adjusted, I realized that one of the brown orbs in the distance wasn’t actually a duck; it was a harbor seal. I had never seen one outside of captivity before. Gasping, I pointed it out to Fausto who followed my finger towards its place in the ocean. The seal rose up, its speckled belly winking in the sun, and plunged under again. From what we could tell, it was alone. We watched it in silence, our bodies tense and eyes squinting. After the fourth time the seal surfaced, it went back under the waves and swam out of sight entirely. The seal’s sudden appearance seemed to mark the end of dinner, and we took our trays to the trash and away from the eyes of two seagulls, who moments before had raised