#our andromeda

[dwellordream]

When I was young, there was no sun and I was afraid. Now, in grownhood, I call the ghost to my fragile table, my fleshy supper, my tiny flame. Not just any old but the ghost, the last one I will be, the future me, finally the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Brenda Shaughnessy, “Big Game.” in Our Andromeda

[dwellordream]

If some clumsy god drops him or forgets to wind up his breath enough to last the whole night or if some irritated hand swats him away like a fly, I will replace my life with blood sport, wild to find that arm, the tendoned shoulder, the loose fist of that god, aim for his face, his expression. I will see it. See whether he equals in horror my child’s beauty.

Brenda Shaughnessy, “If You So Much As Lay a Hand.” in Our Andromeda

[dwellordream]

Night. It has two hands I can use. Its fingers in a plum too ripe not to split. I had to split it. It was so much itself—bloody flesh, wild purple skin. A fistful so lush it was almost imaginary, smelling of love, it didn’t matter whose.

Brenda Shaughnessy, “This Person-Sized Sky with Bruise,” in Our Andromeda

[dwellordream]

The sea can never find the forest, though it can see the trees. The succulent has no bud for salt but one mile away the deer lick and lick as if the sea were in its newborn body, replenishing the kelp of the hoof. Though a sea would as soon drown a deer as regenerate it, there’s a patch of mercy, sweetly skewing between the two. The new wind is already in us, older sister to us all, blowing windfall and garbage alike to those who do not deserve either gifts or refuse.

Brenda Shaughnessy, “Our Andromeda.” in Our Andromeda

[dwellordream]

Is it better to run? Run down the street—the floating red hand that means don’t walk looks like a heart. But I’m too afraid. If we just close our eyes truly enough, believing hard, no peeking, we can be invisible. Don’t let him find us, Cal. Don’t let him find us again.

Brenda Shaughnessy, “Hide-and-Seek with God.” in Our Andromeda

[dwellordream]

Did you know that anguish thins the blood and thickens the vessel? It was like cutting a rare steak. A minotaur, glittering with rubies and pink candles. My hands hung like electrical wires off a building on the edge of collapse, every one of my gestures symbolic, ruined of magic.

Brenda Shaughnessy, “Nachtraglichkeit.” in Our Andromeda

[dwellordream]

I would want to tell You that romance Was a kind of civilization That fell. I cannot Explain the complex Strategies in that bitter Defeat, not that I Fathom it, except to say That we are all haunted. You too, in your wild love And fear. You are a monster. I am not a dream.

Brenda Shaughnessy, “To My Twenty-Four Year Old Self.” in Our Andromeda

[dwellordream]

But it’s always winter in this world. There is no end to ending. The season of giving, the season when the bears are never cold, because they are sleeping. The bears are never cold, Mama, but I am one cold, cold bear.

Brenda Shaughnessy, “Magi.” in Our Andromeda