wildscape. literary journal

Grandmothers
by Shannon Marzella

Once, I was a guest at a séance 

            or, I was a guest

in someone else’s dream. Unclear. There was a table

            and a candle on a brass throne melting wax

into ivory rivers. Nothing in this room 

            was made of glass, therefore

nothing in this room was easily

             broken. Every word became an echo 

of the one before. Every word became 

             a mother, their bodies

cupping each other like Russian dolls, faces

	     both known and unknown, shadowed like bats’

eyes peering through translucent wings. I wanted to touch 

	     their cheeks, some sallow and creased 

with navigable lines, others scarred like peeling tree

	     bark. One was alabaster white and 

eyeless, one could only squint as if it were all

	     too much. Another lay in a childbirth

bed, blood running in thirsty rivers,

	     her arms spread like wings, her voice

a whisper: was her daughter

	     playing in the forest, had she found

the wolf in the center of everything? One knelt 

             before me as if I were the God she had been praying

for, clasped my hands while another 

	     language spilled from her split tongue–

all I could hear was a hiss. 

             I wanted to press 

each of their faces against my own,

             scream into their open mouths:

where have you been hiding and

             can you take me with you?  

about the author // Shannon Marzella