[Hope, little sister]

Hope, little sister, the more I try to cage this one on the page, the further away it gets. If it is a feathered thing, is that why it sticks in my throat? Funny, we grew up in the smallest state with Hope as its shortest motto. If hope is an equation, the sum of desire plus expectation, does the expectation need to be reasonable? Sometimes, it feels more like a needle, or pulverized medicine hidden in a bowl of applesauce. When we would go with mother to Ann & Hope for dull sundries, we might dare to presume a Beatles 45 or a paper sack of artificially buttered popcorn, but not both. Does the cow in the abattoir feel hope right to the last? I’ve been trying to see a future, through candle-scrying, flame-gazing. When the election was finally called, I collected my tears of relief in an amber vial. After Pandora opened the box, hope was the last, smallest, thing left behind. Did she really unleash evils upon the world, or just free herself of her own demons? Remember the day we found a robin in the grass, and I pressed my little red Ked to its belly. No, not the after, when we realized I had only pressed the last lungful through its syrinx, but that sweet moment when we were sure it was still capable of song. 

[Solitude, little sister]

Solitude, little sister, I learned young how to be alone while refusing to be lonely. I’ve always hated that episode of Twilight Zone with a banker who just wants time to read, then when the rest of the world is annihilated, he steps on his glasses. I’m no misanthrope, but have forced a comfort in being re-wombed, made the best of a year of books, beeswax, & sigils. My hair has gone silver, my gender expression less predictable. I found myself explaining to a male friend the other day what a relief it can be for a woman to attract no attention, become invisible. Thanks to solitude, no one is watching—no one but my cats & the moon. When I was out on the road, I savored the populated aloneness of shopping malls in Malmö & Gelsenkirchen, accented by piped-in background music in languages from which I could only grasp scattered phrases. Where having only a simple vocabulary made solitude as tangible as a pool of melted wax in my palm. Have you ever inhabited a silence so deep the only sound is blood pulsing in your ears? I’ll bet there is a deliciously compounded German noun for that. Will you believe me if I say I’m content to keep company with a vintage Webster’s, gilt-embossed with the name of its prior keeper, thumbing through to catalogue my favorites? Cloud. Lilac. Hinge.

M. A. SCOTT

M. A. Scott’s work has recently appeared in the anthology Dead of Winter II from Milk & Cake Press, the DMQ Review, Dream Pop Journal, Rogue Agent, and Ran Off with the Star Bassoon. She grew up in Rhode Island and currently lives in New York’s Hudson Valley, where she likes to spend time with trees.