by Helen Ivory | Mar 2, 2015 | Prose & Poetry
Easy/Awkward Goodbye The café radio coughs another tune, all static and yeah-yeah, as I brush salt from the table. A woolly hat with greasy whiskers clangs his fork against a plate, tugging at the creases in my brow. Your eyes land on my pursed...
by Helen Ivory | Mar 1, 2015 | Prose & Poetry
Lincoln Center Subway It’s Orpheus in the underground. He’s working the downtown platform, playing a metal flute from music propped on a stand. At his feet, a tenor sax lies curled like a tamed beast. In its case’s open lid lies a scatter of coins...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 28, 2015 | Prose & Poetry
Man-Eater You taught me to be a meat-eater— to chew carefully with flesh-shredding-bones— but I wanted to be a bird, I suppose. Something light and aloft, edible if I intended to be. Or smashed against a window, bone-thin, hard-boiled, chewing...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 27, 2015 | Prose & Poetry
Prayers God is drunk in the stairwell curled into a ball, slamming his head against the chipped white paint and slurring “forgive me” under his breath. His hands tremble at the sides of his skull, fingers clawing at his scalp. He can’t...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 26, 2015 | Prose & Poetry
Among Dusty Stage-Props Once again I looked at myself in the mirror. Once again I was overcome by self-pity. Where are the hard manners I demand from myself? I take hold of my mirror and leave. (Translated by Katalin N....
by Helen Ivory | Feb 25, 2015 | Prose & Poetry
Ways of Falling I Age five and slipping off the blue metal swing out back at 13 Marlyns Drive, it was a given the soil would be concrete-hard and Copydex’d with dead grass. The friction of my hands tripping down the chains lifted the scent of hot offal...
