Dear Elea by S. K. Nicholas
Those delicate, slender fingers, ringless as they are ageless, are tracing shapes across the sky before taking refuge in the pockets of her simple city dress. On a patchwork blanket in the sun, the wind kisses her pale neck. It kisses her cheeks, too, leaving them as red as the apples on the trees. Upon her lips, she tastes the merest hint of cherry cola. Her lips are painted blue; adorned with cracks as wide as canyons. So deep. So unfathomable. Her fingers, which are pink and sticky from the honey she steals from the bees, creep once again from her godly pockets and as she collapses like a flower, they dig into the soil like the pecking beaks of birds whose wings lift the curls of her hair into the air as the circling animals give life to that which was once dust. With her back arched, she thrusts her tummy to the stars. Her feet are arched also. Her toes, curled like vines around gravestones belonging to those living by the harbour below, are painted the same colour as her eyes. When she slides her fingers in, she conjures the rain that brings with it a great many number of boats named after her ancestors. The rain falls in a teacup placed on the blanket. Her mother made the blanket, many years ago in her youth, when she made love to as many men as she could, with each of their lips breathing life to her not through a necessity to love, but a desire to live. She has crowns in her teeth and a crown above her head that floated all the way from Greece along with the water and the wind. It came from the belly of an ancient castle flooded since the time of Christ, the name of which mirrors her own. While she slept last night in the barn behind her house, the holy waters spoke to her womb the same way her womb speaks to the blades of grass that dance about her hips in celebration of the one they so adore.
You can read more of S. K. Nicholas’ work on his blog, myredabyss.com.
You can download a free copy of Issue I here.
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