100 Themes 2012, 11-2011. DuskThe sky is darkening, a translucent purple at the edges and a dark, dark drop to black heaven at the centre. At the edge of the land in the west there is a trace of the sun, like a line of light touching the horizon. Leah stands and stares at it, staring but not looking, until the line of light is nothing more than a wavering band that is still there when she blinks. She forgets about the half-damp washing in her hands. She forgets about her hair and her body and the breath moving in and out between her lips. She forgets what she is thinking, or what she wanted to think about, or shouldn't think about. She forgets about the press of
100 Themes 2012, 1-101. IntroductionI am Joseph, and I live between two dark stone walls. My home is an echoing place. It is a cavernous place, and to keep warm I have to huddle at the end, where the raised platform for the altar is somewhat warmer, being made of wood, not stone. My bed is a nest of sorts. It is a scavenged heap of scraps of cloth and layers of dried grass. I dare not light a fire besides, there is no chimney in a church. No fireplace to hold petty kindlings. The only things that are supposed to rise from here are the prayers of the meek and the needy. Perhaps I'm both meek and needy, but I don't pray to that god. Who does, now? All he r
The Trick to ExhaustionThere is a trick to exhaustion that liesin getting it just right. Just rightfor the quiet moth wings and their settled dust.Just right for the poultice on the forehead,that tight band of pain. Just rightfor the bones bending inside sheathes of dough.There is a trick that involves the flung back neck,the flesh swan-white and open to attack. The handsopen and curled like a shell. The pulse fluttering,a light-caught insect drowning in energy.The tick like a clock. Head dazed. The stomachseasick and rocked by the earth.There is a trick to exhaustion that involvesthe inability to sleep, eyelids like membranes,veins sile
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