A National Tragedy

Amalfi Coast, Eliza Delaney

 

 

On the day the sky wept

blood over Texas

we stood together

a little apart

 

Bad posture against

chalky aluminum fence,

braids pulled tight

and neat beneath the sometimes

 

Clear and lying blue infinity.

She turned to me, nonchalant

with a whoosh of plaid skirt

and a click of Mary Janes,

 

Fixing me with a tepid gaze—

I don’t really care at all, she said.

It’s not as if I knew them.

My conscience relaxed then

 

Exhaling through my shoulders.

Me neither, I whispered.

Then she told me a myth

she had heard that morning

 

About a human head

that fell from Heaven

and onto the roof

of someone’s Toyota.

 

I aligned my toes

with a crack in the ground

and leaned all the way

forward until nothing

 

But the very tips

of my fingers clinging

to the metal twists

kept me from falling.

 

 

About the Author

Olivia Weissblum · Pomona College

Olivia Weissblum is a third-year student at Pomona College in Claremont, California. She is majoring in philosophy and minoring in computer science and religious studies in the hopes of someday becoming a science fiction writer and/or roboethicist. In her spare time, she enjoys meteor showers, magical realism, radical honesty and fluffy blankets.

About the Artist

Eliza Delaney · University of Vermont

Eliza Delaney graduated in 2012 with an art history degree. Born in New York City, she moved to Oklahoma at the age of 13. Her photography is inspired by her extensive travels around the country and abroad. Eliza currently resides in Brooklyn, where she is pursuing a career in the arts.

No Comments

Leave a Reply