issue 8
// poetry
Travel by Samsonite after another metaphorical death
by Madeline Newell-Wilson
On the burial forms, I’ve circled nothing,
no hardwood box, ceremonial urn,
but a written-in request for ashes to travel
by Samsonite to see the Seine,
roll along the river in a place I meant to see
in a suitcase gifted to see it, though the wheels
collected more moisture from mouse excrement
in a wet basement than the river’s bank, which
I always imagined as cold, yet full, fresh
rather than my own accounts which I drained instead
on frivolities: groceries, socks lost beneath
furniture. It is nothing to have not made it.
Where I ended up has meaning. Still—
can you not take me to the Seine, wash away
what became that was not holy and see
there is a body lying, there, you see it—
just out of reach.
about the author // Madeline Newell-Wilson
| Madeline Newell-Wilson is a writer and speech-language pathologist from Vermont. She studied English at Wilson College and has an M.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of Vermont. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the McNeese Review, SLAB, Portrait of New England, The Tiger Moth Review, Zig Zag Lit Mag, and the Onion River Review. |
Instagram: @madelinenewellwilson
Website
