Mirelle Salame, Katarina Pavičić-Ivelja, Nora Nadjarian

MY GRANDMOTHER'S VILLAGE IS MADE OUT OF THE SKY

Katarina Pavičić-Ivelja

And the infinite shades of blue quilted together by the steady

hands of her mother and all the mothers of all the mothers

before her.

And when they put their quilting needles down to rest,

they soar high above the rooftops, leaving brush strokes

the texture of their hair all over their unreachable canvas.

And they laugh with the green-faced violinist's purple frock

as they dance to the music of forgotten lifetimes that seep

through the unraveling stitches in the lining of the ether.

And they grow and grow and grow until they rip through

the seams, until the world becomes a marble at their feet,

until they come face to face with Chagall's brush and take it.

And paint a field of wildflowers over their graves

so I may never find them.

(First published in The Galway Review)

A 14  CENTURY SGRAFFITO BOWL SHOWS BUT DOESN’T TELL US

Nora Nadjarian

Missing much of its brown-green body and rim,

unearthed imperfect. A male figure slants to the right

dressed in a long, knee-length garment decorated

with looping lines. Reddish scratches. He brandishes a sword

in his right hand, steps on a rosette-scattered field.

On his missing left hand imagine a sharp hawk

with his heart in its talons. He must have looked so brave,

so flawless that the glazed-face girl could taste his love.

The world was wilder and younger – or was it? – then.

The vertigo you get, when you smell the earth:

a heart still warm, even if, even though.