{"id":18564,"date":"2019-03-01T08:00:43","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T08:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=18564"},"modified":"2019-02-28T15:50:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T15:50:09","slug":"alexandra-melville-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/alexandra-melville-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexandra Melville"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Communion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>the body breaks: feed it to itself<br \/>\nat least once in seven days.<\/p>\n<p>wine is optional; water slakes<br \/>\nthe skin\u2019s dull cry, pours clear<br \/>\ncool across eyelids &amp; down throats.<\/p>\n<p>sing to the tiles, sing to the ones<br \/>\nwho hurt you. comb your hair<br \/>\n&amp; plait it communion. your hands<br \/>\nare silver plates held out. reach \u2013<\/p>\n<p>let your spanned shoulders click<br \/>\nlike a cross. print your cracked<br \/>\nlineaments into washcloths, press<br \/>\ndamp into your skin. these nails<br \/>\nneed paring: do not rake your eyes<\/p>\n<p>like leaves over a grave. look and look<br \/>\ninto the mirror, as though with blind<br \/>\npalms you traced each contour of your<br \/>\nself, mapped in night. hymn this body<\/p>\n<p>reversed: an image made in its own<br \/>\nimage; a star reflected in a sheet of ice,<br \/>\nunknowable &amp; seen:<\/p>\n<p>a piece of dust,<br \/>\na thousand years of light<br \/>\n&amp; still a star<br \/>\n&amp; still ice.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alexandra Melville<\/strong> is a writer and educator. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in L<em>ighthouse, Brittle Star, MIR Online, and Ink, Sweat and Tears<\/em>, and has featured in the National Poetry Library&#8217;s Instagram Poetry exhibition. She is currently studying an MA in Creative Writing and Education at Goldsmiths.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Communion the body breaks: feed it to itself at least once in seven days. wine is optional; water slakes the skin\u2019s dull cry, pours clear cool across eyelids &amp; down throats. sing to the tiles, sing to the ones who hurt you. comb your hair &amp; plait it communion. your hands are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18564"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18579,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18564\/revisions\/18579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}