Weight—Time Narrative
BY THERESA SENATO EDWARDS.
In a few days, I’ll remember the summer my father
and I walked the shoreline of Rhode Island, taking
turns carrying his metal table vice. Its purpose, he said,
was to use it as leverage when the ocean wanted to take
him. I understood, somehow: better to sacrifice the bulk
of his time—what spread in the basement over every
wooden structure he made—than to offer his full heart.
I’ll recall the fullness of a hot season’s length, the weight
of my father’s body as it lost the spice in the limbs
before the sea had a chance to claim any tool cradled
in the belt he could no longer wear. I’m reminded
of the shredding leathered fabric that hung above his
basement worktable, the smell of fresh-cut wood lingering
in the unfinished ceiling filled with his cigarette smoke
and bad language. Each completed task tucked any loss
deftly into home. In a few years, I’ll recall maneuvering
with my father along the jagged rocks because the last thing
he wanted was to be alone in a place other than his workshop.
Anywhere else—heavier than salted air, his last walk along
existence, my fight with memory on its phantom timeline.
Architecture
BY THERESA SENATO EDWARDS.
riff on “fold” from Laura McCullough’s poem “Longing”
The folds in your hands, church pamphlets, every figment
set in the old balcony’s smell, your father’s smell when he
sleeps too long in the back bedroom, back to the opening
which begins stairs, those folds of wood grinding time down
to nonexistence, pointed structure gone from wind, dirty
bed sheets folded like prayers.
The folds in your hands, church pamphlets, every figment
set in the old balcony’s smell, your father’s smell when he
sleeps too long in the back bedroom, back to the opening
which begins stairs, those folds of wood grinding time down
to nonexistence, pointed structure gone from wind, dirty
bed sheets folded like prayers.
Theresa Senato Edwards has published two full-length poetry books, one, with painter Lori Schreiner, which won The Tacenda Literary Award for Best Book, and two chapbooks. Her first chapbook, The Music of Hands, was published in a revised second print edition by Seven CirclePress. Poems from her newest manuscript entitled "Fragments of Wing Bones" can be found in Stirring, Gargoyle, The Nervous Breakdown, Thrush, Diode, Rogue Agent, Mom Egg Review, Menacing Hedge, Moria, Harbor Review, Matter Press’ Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, 3Elements Review, Dialogist, SWWIM, Whale Road Review, and The Shore Poetry. Edwards was nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, received creative writing residencies from Drop Forge & Tool and Craigardan, and is a poetry editor for The American Poetry Journal. You can keep up with her on her website here.
"Architecture" was previously published in The Music of Hands (Seven CirclePress).
"Architecture" was previously published in The Music of Hands (Seven CirclePress).