Catechumens

By: Bethany Buchholz

What happens now, Magdalena? How long

did we sit by the bridal fires, waiting? When the young men

retired to their nooks, we hardened ourselves to the uvular trill

of soft-fingered children; when they, too, crept into sleep

you pocketed the last of their buttered rolls before turning

down the flames. As you turned away, what was the meaning

of that ember cradled in your cheek?

We said all our right words. Your hair skimmed my knee.

In the darkness, a winged rustling; and later,

when night had settled around my ankles, we were still

not alone. The gate closed behind.

Now I believe in the power of our shared wine,

the spinal twists, the forward thrust of a woman’s hips,

honeyed milk on my tongue, the call and response of bells

and silence. My dress is still damp where you held me breathless

and underwater; a new name inked on my nape.

Is it time to go back into the city? These streets are shuttered;

I am still in my winding sheet. We press our faces against dawn:

our feet sound on the stones. Magdalena, your veil.

Magdalena, your face is still glowing.

Oral Tradition

I was born the year the land betrayed my father.

My mother planted landmines in a field of soldiers,

and they took her. It’s always the ones in blue

that you have to watch for – the ones with horses.

The decaying smell of earth clung to my father’s skin,

perfume of his first lover. He made a loon sound

the night he found my mother’s battalion

strewn about with the chaff,

the night she wasn’t with them.

We saw her once, after. They’d cropped her hair.

That woman had my mother’s face, but a different walk.

Then the gates closed. We moved to the city.

They opened our mail until my mother died inside the gates,

and they sent her home.

I do not remember this. I was a child.

I have the thesaurus she took to university.

I have her same short fingers.

Arts & Letters

Campus Box 89

Georgia College & State University

Milledgeville, GA 31061

(478) 445-1289

al@gcsu.edu

Arts & Letters accepts submissions from September 1 to March 1 (postmark deadlines). For complete information, see submission guidelines.