ALL IS SOFT INSIDE
by Shanley McConnell
you did not survive alone to
stay like this; quiet and bone
knees hugged to skin, shirt, chest, undo
this, stretched shadows paving stone
:
5 4 3 2 done, midnight sun
red stars spread. soft universe,
speak to me. we live under one
gun. gracious, unheard, not alone.
Mao’s vision opens at the sight of the two children
from SELAH ARCADIA
Rain blows soft & unlatched
the way winter arrives
On Mao’s desk lies the letter
unfolded to the reveal
The rim of a world far, far
away:
Her sister, shoes tucked into
her school skirt,
Sitting on an egg crate crying
their old house
Her sadness oddly at home in
her eyes
*This poem is from the unfinished manuscript SELAH ARCADIA. The lyrical narrative follows five musicians who, commissioned by an anonymous composer to perform his latest quintet, tour Europe and the Mediterranean in pursuit of a poetic shaped place of vision, wonder and harmony—SM.
I did not read the book of myths
in response to Adrienne Rich’s poem Diving into the Wreck
I was too preoccupied loading the camera, ensuring that its lens was
screwed tight, its strap secure around my neck—swimming, sinking,
grasping hold of the ladder, coming up, coming to the conclusion that I
had seen enough wrecks in my lifetime to know that I did not want to see
another. I did not want to examine what lay below
The Departure
But there are consequences to the breathing-in-slow,
the take-my-hand, I know how to stay calm
When they, with eyes closed and traveling, treat you
second-hand, less-than—consequences
To the dancing slow-and-alone, when palm-wrist
movements meet our bodies and the room
widens six-by-six. Looking up and in and feeling
nothing but me and you in moments
When we could not complain, the loneliness of 365
days in three echoing years, departing from
a memory that would remain forgotten until we
experienced it once again. Our lives,
never as fair as they had been real. We stood in
the soundlessness of unknowing, knowing
home was becoming small, distanced by the fragile
minor of goodbye
About the Poet: Shanley McConnell is an MSt Creative Writing graduate from the University of Oxford. Their work received second-place in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly (2019), and was recently shortlisted for both the SaveAs International Poetry Competition and the HT20 Oxford Review of Books Short Story Competition. She recently completed two chapbooks: ON HER KNEES IN A COUNTRY OF SMOOTH STONES and Scheherazade, an illustrated collaboration. Their poetry often reflects on their experience of moving between the US, delving into exploration on the beautiful tension of belonging to more than one country.