The Foot of Montségur A rumor said we crept in and dug like animals a hollow for the grail. The friars weren’t listening at Albi or Verfeuil. We buried nothing. I think of the spaces where we existed. Landscape is a corner of my eye: papery like dry ashen leaves. The crusaders brought a map with blue cut into the outline of our Languedoc. I touched the lightweight edge, the places where our caves would be; we worshipped in the walls. I loved to steady the child’s head with a light touch on the ear, her patient stare while I combed the long hair back, breathed the cold cutting air, and buried the afterbirths. I knew there was no mistake about the body and routine. God did not send us out, but back. The most physical of all, I rocked as in a body, what I felt a boat must be. I see rocks, transparent, how grainy water is, and finally I watch the iron density of flame. All night, sun sets on the town. Easily they fit us in the circle. We are the last of us. Previously published in Pricking (Tiger Bark Press, 2016). Jessica Cuello is the author of Hunt, a feminist response to Moby Dick and winner of The 2016 Washington Prize from The Word Works. Her other collections include Pricking (Tiger Bark Press, 2016) and the chapbooks My Father’s Bargain (2015), By Fire (2013), and Curie (2011). She was the winner of The 2013 New Letters Poetry Prize, a winner of LUMINA’s poetry contest (selected by Carolyn Forché), the recipient of a 2015 Saltonstall Writing Fellowship and the recipient of the 2014 Decker Award from Hollins University for outstanding teaching. https://jessicacuello.wordpress.com/ Comments are closed.
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Blog HostNatasha Kochicheril Moni is a writer and a licensed naturopath in WA State. Enjoying this blog? Feel free to put a little coffee in Natasha's cup, right here. Archives
October 2019
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