Past monthly courses and curses, I am now thin-skinned. Just lickable red salt from five seconds holding the knife wrong while listening for imagined owls, while not writing “I love you” sonnets, while learning the power in weakness. About the author:
Nancy Scott has over 990 bylines in magazines, literary journals, anthologies, newspapers, and audio commentaries. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Her work appears in *82 Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Braille Forum, Chrysanthemum, Kaleidoscope, One Sentence Poems, Persimmon Tree, Pulse Voices, Shark Reef, Wordgathering, and Yahoo News.
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You are familiar with the tale. A mermaid, sang with the most beautiful angelic sound. Had to surrender voice to be human and marry the prince. He wanted another princess, and poor mermaid dissolved in the ocean. Aphasia is: A snake that coils and hisses. Diabolical Ursula schemes to rule the ocean world. An evil witch who casts a spell over speech. A toothy fox ready to bite your head off. A sudden end to your dreams, only able to see a dark tunnel, the sun blocked. Disney gave the story a happy ending, so Ariel married the prince. With courage and strength, you overcome disability and are much better. You have learned much and are still alive. A fairytale ending to a scary fable. About the author:
Rochelle M. Anderson lives in Minnesota, USA. She is an attorney who had a severe stroke in 2007 and almost died. She is still disabled with difficulty walking, and because of aphasia struggles with reading and writing. Ms. Anderson has been published in four chapbooks, and several online poetry journals. Writing poetry has helped her recover, and dictation fuels her words.
No matter how we pray or sorrow, no matter how we festoon bells and lights, no matter how we wrap and sing and bake and make lists of the futures we want, this winter might be masked and frazzled. Invoke a solstice astral alignment. Bargain with politics and viruses cajole the antique angel doorknob-dreaming. Light a flameless candle in the back window. Have cinnamon and old movies on hand. Find one craftstore present significant because it makes you laugh-- a little stuffed lion with glittery fur and a unicorn horn; improbable connundrum of strength and myth. Mail the tailed talisman on its perilous journey cross-country to a land of tumbleweeds and dewless skies. Your friend will shake his head questioning long-distance intentions. But some nights, we each need to believe. Dancing toys, talking animals, taps on the midnight roof. Telescopes or televisions trained. Everyone is looking for their cure. About the author:
Blind American author Nancy Scott's over 975 essays and poems have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies, newspapers, and as audio commentaries. Her latest chapbook appears on Amazon, The Almost Abecedarian. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in *82 Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Braille Forum, Chrysanthemum, Kaleidoscope, One Sentence Poems, Pulse Voices, Shark Reef, Wordgathering, and The Mighty, which regularly publishes to Yahoo News. |
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