Luminous Darkness: Escape and Transgression
By Gerri Leen
The Line
She’s desperate, her baby held close
A bulging backpack nearly pulling
Her slight frame over and I know what
She’s going to ask before she even
Opens her mouth: she wants to cross the Line
I sit on the hood of my pickup, an old beater
Nothing special, at least not until the line appeared
The line of day, the line of night
And this one never moved
And there’s one on the exact other side of the Earth
Keeping things the same way
My truck can cross so long as I’m driving
I’ve talked to others who can cross the line
We were all artists, saw pictures in our heads
And recorded them as words or photos or painting
(And my parents said art would be a waste of time)
My folks are stuck on the night side
Too afraid to try the drive over, used to
Endless darkness and so many more visible stars
I tell this mother not everyone survives but she
Doesn’t care and so I tell her the younger
You are, the less likely to make it through
You have to know what the other side looks like
And this baby’s only ever seen daylight
But she promises to put him to her breast
Feed him her memories in her milk
It works but not all the time
How long has it been since she’s seen the stars?
She whispers that she used to sculpt
(I don’t know if it’s true or she just wants me
To think she’s like me and the other drivers)
I motion her in the truck, let her get the baby
Settled and nursing, and head for the Line
I imagine seeing the big dipper, Halloween night
And throwing toilet paper over trees, a full moon
Over an ocean with bright green phosphorescence
Amid the velvety blackness of the water and sky
My hair fills with static, we’re close to the Line
I hope, for both their sakes, she has vivid recall
Because the Line doesn’t just prevent passage
It takes the ones who can’t see where they’re going
We hit it and there’s dark, then a light so bright it hurts
Then dark again, then light
This will go on for a while and all sound is muffled
I won’t know if she and her baby made it
Until we’re out of here and I don’t look
To see what happens if they’re not making it
I did once, when I first started
Ferrying people across
(I’ll never do that again)
Crows Mourn Too
Grandmother Crow stands under
The rookery near the edge of the cliff
Her black feathers contained
In black taffeta, her mourning
Dress matching the iron-black
Trees and the raven new moon
As the pale sunset behind her
Sets off her corvid darkness and the pile
Of dead crows all around her
“Is this better?” she asks, her voice
Hoarse and raspy as she speaks our tongue
“Do you accept that I mourn my children
If I do it in your garb rather than mine?”
The townsfolk murmur among themselves
Poisoners, killers of the murder—but why?
Then they back away in alarm
As she grows, she and the dress, now
Three feet high, now four, now five
“Stop!” I yell as I run to her
My best shears at the ready
I made this dress for her
She infused it with magic
All to prove a point
“Who cares what they think—they’re evil”
I cut her free carefully lest I nick
One precious ebony feather
“Take me with you,” I beg
She shrinks to crow-size, flaps
To my shoulder and lays her beak
Next to my cheek
“I would if I could, soul-sister”
And then in a rush of wind
She is gone and I stand
Holding slowly disintegrating
Taffeta as I drop my shears, aware
Of the muttering of the townsfolk
As I weep
You Can’t Make Me Go
The
Light is
Brighter than I
Expected, brighter than anything
I’ve ever seen but I
Won’t go into it
I don’t want
To be
Dead
You
Told me
We were forever
And I believed you
Well, until you stabbed me
Straight in the heart
Your eyes cold
As I
Died
Can
I turn
Back and find
You and whoever you’re
Going to target next because
People like you don’t
Do this once
And then
Stop
If
I keep
My head down
And my eyes closed
Can I wait out the
Light, not move until
It’s gone back
To its
Home?
The
Light doesn’t
Move but I’m
Patient, I waited for
You, after all, and got
You, even if you
Proved to be
No prize
Package
The
Longer I
Sit here the
Less I want to
Save others, the more I
Want revenge—does that
Make me a
Bad Person
Too?
The
Light whispers
Promises of vengeance
Once you find another
Then I can be reborn
As your child—You’ll
Adore me until
I kill
You
Eh, My Pretty? (Or Archetypes Collide)
I tear down the path
The relentless tread of my
Pursuer drumming in my ears
Until I round a corner
A cabin, light in every window
And an old woman standing
On the porch, her smile not
Reaching her eyes
“Come into the house and out
Of the rain, my pretty”
Does she seriously
Think I’m doing that?
I stop, but only to catch my breath
I can see her victims piled up
In the hall behind her
“Tell that to the guy chasing me,” I say
As I slip around her house
And peek back: firelight reflects
On his blade so I steal away
My pursuer’s footsteps fade as
A scream sounds: but who cries out?
Has the evil witch become his final girl?
Or has he become her next pretty?
The Collector Prince
So many stories about how
I was brought back to life
Love’s true kiss from you burning away
The poison from the apple
Or a stumble by your servants
Carrying my glass coffin, causing a
Piece of the apple to dislodge
Or a more deliberate slap
From servants tired of carrying
My dead body in my glass coffin
From room to room in the castle
To wherever you were—for weeks
It matters not
And I shall not lower myself
To speculate what you did to
My body, half alive, half dead
While I was in the glass coffin
If you touched me in ways
Honorable or not so
It’s irrelevant given my discovery
And also too upsetting to dwell on
Besides, our son, your heir, was born
Ten months after our wedding
A child of consent
A child of love
And then I found them
Lining the walls of a room
In the tower you told me
Was dangerous to traverse
The stairs sure to disintegrate
And yet you’d been able
To have so many beautiful girls—
Or at least the ones that haven’t
Begun to molder are still lovely—
Brought up here and
Enshrined in prismatic caskets
To sparkle and glimmer like diamonds
As the sun hits them
Was this to be my home too?
Did I simply get lucky—and you
Unlucky—by whatever woke me?
Or was it that I am a true princess
And my absence might be noted
But surely you didn’t know that at first
I mean you found me in the forest
Living with seven men
What kind of woman did you really
Take me for? Was it royal or wretched
Like these poor women?
I can see the trace of paint on their
Faces, the scabs and scratches on
Their hands
They fought, didn’t they?
I’ve seen scratches on your face
Even since we were wed
From a cat, or a blackberry bush
Or falling off a horse
So many excuses
But I imagine it was not those things
But one of these women
Nails flailing, biting even
Leaving their mark on you
Insignificant to what you did to them
I kneel in the middle of the room
Surrounded by rainbow light
And ask my dead sisters one thing
How would you like to be avenged?
EXHIBIT TWO (Ruined Ruby): Return to Gallery Three: Interlopers and “The Train“
Proceed to the next Gallery Four: Transitions attraction, “To Play the Queen of Hearts“