"Malachite Sunset" by Marisol Brady
Two poems by Carolyn Williams-Noren
To Constancy
I go to buy some shoes,
and no one can sell me the shoes
I bought six years ago.
For my grandparents,
it was good toasters. Clothespins,
the ones without a metal hinge.
Can’t get them anymore.
The shoes were made and sold
by strangers, but my body
asks for them. The knees,
the shin’s tiny muscles,
the ankle, the band
from outer knee to hip—
these ache
for the shoe. Rely
on the shoe like I rely
on the car buzzer to tell me:
Turn off the headlights.
The week the buzzer breaks
I let the battery drain
in four different parking lots.
What strength I’d need
not to depend on things.
I sharpen the knives
and learn their dullness
had kept me safe.
With four bandaged fingers
I relearn how to slice.
First Poem
Walking today, I see a squirrel dead for months
melted out of snow, looking like a length of frayed grey cloth.
Then another, which maybe is a length of frayed grey cloth.
Broken tree lying across other trees.
Another broken tree lying across other trees.
The woodpecker flies on evenly.
I set this down like I lift up the red mitten I find on the ground
soggy, filthy. I prop it on the fence post to dry and take back its shape.
For a second, approaching, you might think it’s a robin.
Maybe you’ll think it’s yours, lost since fall.
melted out of snow, looking like a length of frayed grey cloth.
Then another, which maybe is a length of frayed grey cloth.
Broken tree lying across other trees.
Another broken tree lying across other trees.
The woodpecker flies on evenly.
I set this down like I lift up the red mitten I find on the ground
soggy, filthy. I prop it on the fence post to dry and take back its shape.
For a second, approaching, you might think it’s a robin.
Maybe you’ll think it’s yours, lost since fall.
Carolyn Williams-Noren's poems are compiled in two chapbooks: F L I G H T S (2020, Ethel Zine & Press) and Small Like a Tooth (2015, Dancing Girl Press). They’ve also been in AGNI, Boxcar Poetry Review, Gigantic Sequins, and Sugar House Review. She lives in Minneapolis.
Marisol Brady is a self-taught photographer whose work examines the ephemerality of capitalist excess, nostalgic distortion, times we’ve had, times we’ve been told we had, and the time we have left. They cast an optimistic, neon-lensed glance at the decay precipitated by the hyper-escalating economic inequality and planetary destruction of the past four decades that, with some squinting, recognizes its transformative potential. Originally hailing from Long Island’s south shore, Marisol lives in Brooklyn.
