Last night
we drove through the red ribs of Jonah?s whale
our car like a breath
taken into the tunnel
picked clean of its oxygen
and expelled into a city of black and light
Today a strong and cold wind
The streets seem strange
foreign
full of obstacles
The color of things is wrong
What trees there are
toss
blackening the clouds with something inky
pulled from the asphalt
made into their own blood
and rained down
on shoulder-brushing strangers
with their unhappy luggage
We can’t live like this
A city without bridges will starve
We can’t walk like ghosts
through the exhaled breath
of each other’s desires
listening for our own death
The soul will cry out sometime
She has to
She will chew the air
She will shriek with menses
She will dance
legs apart
blood caught and clotting in her throat
until a mother’s lips
whisper against the cheek of her child
the beast crawls back to the growling cave
and the tribe gathers
once again
to spit fruit seed and chant-song
together
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An English instructor, reporter, editor and produced playwright, with an M.A. and M.F.A. in the Novel from San Francisco State University, Claire Ortalda has been published in numerous literary journals. Her short story, ‘A Village Dog,’ was winner of the Georgia State University Fiction Prize. Her poem, ‘Iowa,’ was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is a founding officer of the multicultural literary group PEN Oakland, an associate editor for Narrative Magazine, and the editor of The Other Side of the Closet (IBS Press) and Financial Sanity (Doubleday).
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