"Broken Lines" by Emanuela Iorga

for my grandma doris almost four years after by Jace Raymond Smellie

when i miss you now, it’s different. now, you’ve become a soon to be overlooked artifact, a thing
entombed within a wall—you are there, behind the wall, where i placed you—i am the room.

i am the room with dusk fading beyond the window; a fresh coat of bone gray paint glows blue
as the lights give way—

recently, you were in my dream—the baby wouldn’t sleep again. she was crying & for some reason
we were in your old house. you & aunt sue followed the sound of her wailing through the
house to find us.

while sue and i discussed whether or not to hold the annual christmas eve party—the one you
used to host—you repeated,

let me hold the baby,

i want to hold the baby,

until you held the baby.

she dipped her forehead into your weathered neck. you bounced her until she slept & i woke—

walls creaking with wind.

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Jace Raymond Smellie is an MFA candidate at George Mason University originally from Pocatello, Idaho. Jace is a descendent of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. He was awarded a 2021 MFA Travel Fellowship from The Alan Cheuse Center for International Writers, and his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Southern Humanities Review, Cimarron Review, and Boston Accent Lit.

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​Emanuela Iorga is a filmmaker, artist, and screenwriter, who lives in Chisinau, Moldova. Art represents for her a recently rediscovered passion, following a series of world and inner changes. Her work can be found at https://manolcaincosmos.wordpress.com/270-2/