Breadcrumb #118

ANDREW MARINACCIO

Move out to the country
And starve to field noises behind closed doors
This cleric’s mission is for all of us
Though your heart left while being plucked too dearly 

If Fate allowed so much as this
Separate her fingers
and paint with them in your hungriest terms

As our napes further erode
I realize I’ve seen too much of your face
And broken some earthen code
My job is almost done: I, cartographer
Linking incandescent corners
half-meaningfully pecking, then staying for a while 

Tonight was like that other one
All birdsongs and coffee-stained Easter bread
Taking turns catching onto something scarred and molten
Glancing at each other's necks and meaning to ask. 

Fewer see that they were bound before in these countless poses
We watched carefully and gave them new names: 

My Spectral Hand
Your Lunar Coo
Between animal and artisan
The nest was built and difference due

• • •

Breadcrumb #116

CHRISTIE DONATO

 In Paradise every day is the first day of summer. 

    It’s never cold, and there’s always a light breeze. Flowers bloom in the fields and forests, fruit is ripe on the vine, and grain is ready for harvest. The days are long, and the nights are warm and deep. The wood is dense and lush, like the day after a heavy rain, and the trees there are strange and ancient; thick-trunked and dressed in moss. It is a place well-suited for hunting parties and Midsummer festivals.

    At night, she dreamed of gold and red leaves, of tree roots and earth hard with frost, of landscapes painted white with snow. She saw the ocean rolling hard against a mist-heavy beach, or a willow tree lashed by wind and rain. These scenes were her dreams and daydreams.

    However, there were details which she could not conjure simply because she did not know them. For instance, she failed to imagine the huff of a white breath in January, or the slick, stickiness of sweat in July. She could imagine the beauty of these scenes, but not their reality. She had never experienced a day that was cold, wet, or even too windy. She had never seen nature decay, or animals disappear for months on end. 

“She could imagine the beauty of these scenes, but not their reality.”

     She knew nothing of Julius Caesar or Napoleon Bonaparte. She was aware that there were places called Europe and Africa, but they were little more than abstractions to her. She had no idea that there were such things as automobiles, or that, somewhere, humans were learning to fly. However, she did know that to see a light in a dark wood meant danger, to hold a torch at a crossroads was a summoning, and that a crow could be just a bird, or a spy.

     She was born in Paradise, underneath a yew tree and a full moon. She was swaddled in a torn tunic, and carried close to her mortal mother’s breast. Tight enough to feel the swell and thud of a heartbeat. Near enough to hear the persistent inhales and sighs, the whispered words meant for her ears alone. Her mother sang to her of home. Soft, simple songs of the Nile River and the desert. Lullabies colored by a fear of floods, drought, and war.

     Her father said that in the world he came from, everything must perish from the Earth in its own time. In Paradise, these rules do not hold. Time moves differently there, if it moves at all.  In her dreams she longed for the dead things of her parents’ home. She yearned in secret for what she could not have, and what she did not fully understand. 

     For at night she dreamed of gold and red leaves.

• • •


Breadcrumb #114

ALEXANDER PETROV

“Bravado, young man. That’s what we call someone in your state. Bravado.”
“Why, sir? I was only doing what you told me I should-”
“We only say those things to make you feel better. You know that the truth is, my boy, that no one knows what the truth is.”
“Well sir, you told me it was my duty. To find - a place - to create a change...”
“Well, you can’t.”
“I did.”
“You’d better not.”
“I wouldn’t if I couldn’t.”
“But if you can disobey me and do what I saidn’t you should would you?”
“Sir, I wouldn’t disobey what you say - even if it made any sense.”
“That’s sad. You’re must be one of those solipshits”
“Sir, I genuinely hate you.”
“How can you hate me if you believe I’m not real?”
“You’re wrong.”
“You’re a wiseguy. I don’t like wiseguys. Is the hand on your face real?”
“Sir, I’m a kid. I look up to you. Why are you hitting me?”
“Oh yes, that’s right. Sorry about that. Care for a mint?”
“It would take more than a mint to take that away.”
“How about a percocet?”
“I’ll take two.”
“Scotch?”
“Make that a double.”
“Nicotine?”
“A lifetime, please.”
“What shall we talk about then?”
“You know - the piano is my favorite instrument. Its range and versatility are unmatched.”
“Mine is the saxophone. It’s got soul. The sax’s melancholy rasp makes me want to cry every time.”
“The moonlight song…”
“A blue note that sings of-
“Pain.”
“What of slavery and killing perpetual?”
“And words like ‘victuals’?”
“Rituals!”
“Ah, that’s grand.”
“A grand? May I have one or two?”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you…”
“Is money that important?”
“No. It’s more important.”
“What about what you said earlier? You know, the other stuff.”
“From what you’re asking me I can tell that you want my money.”
“That’s not even true. Didn’t you say I should want it?”
“I said you should get it. If you want to be happy.”
“What if I’m already happy?”
“How do you know you’re happy?”
“Well sir-”
“I know you are, my child. That’s why I created you. To be happy”
“Well I was the whole time. I just didn’t know it.”
“Don’t you ever feel the need to show it!”
“Never did.”
“They’ll take it from you!”
“They can’t.”
“MY CHILD HAS GONE INSANE!”
“You’ve lost your peace, my dear old man.”
“You’re wrong.”
“You have.”
“My peace is you.”

• • •