Slowly, As I Leave You
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. crazy life 2. life in turmoil 3. life disintegrating 4. life out of balance 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living
We made this eZine at the start of Gemini Season 2020
(~￣³￣)~
Caroline Belle Stewart is a writer and teacher living in Western MA. Her stories can be found in Denver Quarterly, Fairy Tale Review, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook "Husbandly Things" (Factory Hollow Press) and co-creator of a cartomantic ornithology narrative called "Mast Year: A Mystical Field Guide" (Mount Analogue Press). She’s a recipient of fellowships from Monson Arts, I-Park, and MacDowell.
Caroline Rayner is a writer from Virginia who currently lives in Massachusetts. She is the author of calorie world (Sad Spell, 2017), and her work can be found in Peach, Black Warrior Review, Shabby Doll House, Tiny Mix Tapes, and elsewhere.
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That a sick wind put us in the basement again. Here you are forgiving the helicopters beating the velvet sky. What is the inverse of a dream. It wasn’t just the wind that stirred the creatures in the stables. An empty suit sits up and rises from the sofa. How do you mother the weather. Did I ever ask to be spared by the wind. Or to set myself apart from floating horses. My dreams could shave a whole town off a prairie. The wind writes in cursive on the surface of the pool. If an artist is defined as a person who tries, then what do I mean by god. Everywhere I go, dragging the wind on me. It blows the words back into my face. See it stride across the room, the velvet suit, the mirror powered by the ritual. Beware a man trying.
Here you are with a little something called a radio. You should have known, being an artist. No one asked for it to resemble a cake abandoned by the side of the pool. The demon in me wants to laugh. I thought you could tell, being a person fucking trying. Oysters all over the table like soup all over the ceiling. Blame the weather. Summer, an evacuated ritual, but do your hair like you believe what the mirror reveals. Fruits of all my listening gone to hell. The paint horse is not the one in the house anyway. Rehearse until the wind finds the whip floating in the basement. Velvet less forgiving than you might guess. Who do you have a date with, screeching like that. Are you putting your eyes on with the kind that runs, or the kind that flakes.
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