"Alien Photobomb" by Matthew Fertel
Megan Denton Ray | Some Days I Taste Honey
two years with Long-Covid taste loss
I used to burst into full aliveness. I used to be able to burst into full aliveness.
Heaven already knows about this: my excitability, my tendency to look for God
in everything. Now, and only some days I may taste a bitty wisp of honey
in my morning tea. As in—aliveness as in—joy as in—nectar and elixir and
horse-like prancing through the forest here comes my little fork, full
of thorns again. Daily we frolic on and off and some days, it’s cold cardboard
or wet, sour wrongness— think salt-sharp, think orange juice after toothpaste.
Now I must eat with my eyes and try not to wither away. No one knows
about this: how I got sick and got sick and got sick and because I was alone
in a new city unsure of what would come flapping out of my cupped hands: my sick-self
my secret gallop or my divine rearranging, and after years of swimming the edge
of sustenance, of nourishment— I feel hungry always and never and now
I don’t know what to do with all the honey I have left. I have so much honey left.
Heaven already knows about this: my excitability, my tendency to look for God
in everything. Now, and only some days I may taste a bitty wisp of honey
in my morning tea. As in—aliveness as in—joy as in—nectar and elixir and
horse-like prancing through the forest here comes my little fork, full
of thorns again. Daily we frolic on and off and some days, it’s cold cardboard
or wet, sour wrongness— think salt-sharp, think orange juice after toothpaste.
Now I must eat with my eyes and try not to wither away. No one knows
about this: how I got sick and got sick and got sick and because I was alone
in a new city unsure of what would come flapping out of my cupped hands: my sick-self
my secret gallop or my divine rearranging, and after years of swimming the edge
of sustenance, of nourishment— I feel hungry always and never and now
I don’t know what to do with all the honey I have left. I have so much honey left.
Megan Denton Ray is the author of Mustard, Milk, and Gin, winner of the 2019 New Southern Voices Poetry Prize (Hub City Press, 2020). She holds an MFA from Purdue University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY, The Adroit Journal, Sixth Finch, Passages North, and elsewhere. She currently lives and teaches in North Carolina.
Matthew Fertel is a Sacramento-based photographer who has worked in the Photography department at Sierra College since 2004. Before that, he was a fine art auction house catalog photographer in San Francisco for over 10 years.
Matthew's current work focuses on capturing the minutiae he encounters in his daily life. He seeks to expose the hidden beauty in the everyday objects that make up the landscape of our existence. Going to the same locations over days, months and years allows him to capture images under different lighting and weather conditions, and to see objects change over long or short periods of time. There is art hidden everywhere if you learn to see it.
Learn more at his website and on Instagram.
Matthew's current work focuses on capturing the minutiae he encounters in his daily life. He seeks to expose the hidden beauty in the everyday objects that make up the landscape of our existence. Going to the same locations over days, months and years allows him to capture images under different lighting and weather conditions, and to see objects change over long or short periods of time. There is art hidden everywhere if you learn to see it.
Learn more at his website and on Instagram.
