by Katie Marya (art by Samantha Bastress)
Come elusive rhythm—that my hips may move in time, that an 8-count allows this
overture for a moment until a child is shot in school, a man too, until any heavy grief
nears us. Do you need anything right now? The silence is turning itself up, weeds
take over. Where do our hands go in despair? I’m outside. My hips un-border me,
ultra-lights frame the world and Dahlias bend in the street because rain. Come carry
next week’s blue lot with me, I know we can predict it. A lot is a still field. This
doll house of a country can’t be re-planted or re-planned. Our DNA debris—
before, after, and especially when, we love. I love you, want to dance with you
now: 8 and 1 and. The music faces you tall and sly like my mother faces
cemeteries. I’ll be fine to slide on in, she says. First, try to move just your feet
inches off the ground, tap them. Now maybe your shoulders in circles. Does it feel good?
and do you hear the gun sounds out here in the joy, in this illusion of time?
Katie's work has appeared in The Rio Review, North American Review, Southern Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, and Five Points as the recipient of the 2018 James Dickey Prize for Poetry. She has received fellowships from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and the Nebraska Arts Council. She received her MFA in poetry from Bennington College and is currently pursuing a PhD in creative writing in at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
(Artist) Samantha Bastress is an artist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She works in several mediums, but her favorites are ink and watercolor. She is interested in nonverbal communication and how art can be used to navigate public spaces. Samantha is beginning her MA in Interdisciplinary Design at Chatham University this summer where she plans to specialize in accessibility within design for nonprofit institutions. She can be found on Instagram at @slb_sketch.
Artist’s Statement, “Glitch,” watercolor and ink on paper
One of my friends described me as a magpie when I came home holding chips of blue pottery from the sidewalk. I think this is an accurate description of my art practice - I like to collect. I have worked in both museums and libraries, and these places were full of material that sparked ideas for paintings, collages, and small sketches. Hands, headlines from nature magazines, science fiction, and folklore inspire a lot of my work, and while I no longer belong to any religion, I am fascinated by the imagery of it all.