her catafalque» a quiet kitchen table covered with notebooks scrap papers ringed with coffee spills» anointing idioms with balms» ash she studied dead words made places on their graves» tended to them
a quiet kitchen not visitable any longer she sat
the sun warming her mug as she recited antediluvian resurrection lyrics»
reanimation of foreign language collective apoplexy» to feel oxygen after dust
she studied dead words
she studied unloved words and loved them cared for them like her own» taking apart their histories
she gave a home to dead words and pronounced them undead
birth death and migration» language as liquid language as presently changing as a living river
a string like garland to make memory tacky
only to say a few words to make anywhere feel warm like a kitchen I want to sit in» lap up a dreamy gaze» swallow to remember better
a phrase to hold tight in your fist burning like a lake until someone else speaks and it fades
she studied dead words, orphans, took me in
I dug a ditch
"Ethan Has Nowhere To Go" was a short story written by Jeremy Hight. It was about to be published when he pulled it. It will never be published. These solicited works are Ethan. These works are the story.
The text exists only to be used as a nameless trigger, as a bit of back end, like HTML code.
Alexandra Naughton lives in Oakland with her black cat, Sookie. She is the writer of I Will Always Be Your Whore [love songs for Billy Corgan] and the editor of lit/art zine, Be About It. Her piece in this collection is a poem inspired by the idea of dead words.
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