STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
JULIE WEISS
That night, I should have come straight
home to you, but her voice, more strap
than sound, drew my car to a halt.
Rain sizzled down tent tops as though
a dragon had descended upon
the fair, all wings and claws and fire,
the moon curled up, gasping for light
after having birthed it. As a child
I had longed to cross this threshold,
cut open my storybook and step inside,
scale word after word to the tip of
my imagination, free-fall into a fantasy.
What notion of desire did I nourish?
Its glittery gown, its giant neon wings,
the witch hiding behind the façade
stirring up a pot of reality—
witches boil children, don´t they?
Some force implored me to heed
the voice, a wisp of time bygone
wafting on the wind, summoning me
to a room in the furthest tent, into
a whirlwind of color, a riot of jewels
strung on ceiling fixtures, shawls flung
over furniture. Shadows sliding across
moon-polished cobblestones behind me.
I´m here, I whispered into the chasm.
The eyes of a skull I had seen in dreams
caught me in their orange glare.
Ravens cawed overhead, winging mist
across my face. What sinister force
tore through the floor, quaking the table,
setting candles in motion, rattling flasks
that surely contained, what? Insect limbs,
some ancient potion for metamorphosis?
How far below my flesh had time imploded
when she emerged out of smoke and rumble,
ten-thousand light years snaked along
her face, voice thick with blood, bones.
I won´t reveal the impending tragedy.
I won´t propel the omen into the darkness,
its glow more blinding than headlights.
I won´t call you. Instead, I´ll moor my heart
to paper, pocket my love as the fair spins
backwards, before my body strikes nine.
Julie Weiss is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut chapbook forthcoming from Kelsay Books in July 2021. She was a finalist in Alexandria Quarterly´s first line poetry contest series and a finalist for The Magnolia Review´s Ink Award. A Best of the Net nominee, her recent work appears in Perhappened, Dust Poetry Magazine, and MacQueen´s Quinterly, among others, and she has poems in many anthologies, as well. Originally from California, she lives in Spain with her wife and two young children. You can find her on Twitter @colourofpoetry or on her website at https://julieweiss2001.wordpress.com/.
