wildscape. literary journal

In The Other World
by Sandy Feinstein

I see you there. Still but wakeful. Unaware of how you got to that place, but unsurprised. Imp tree, asp, vehicle. In the evening, not the undertide, late summer Florida heat weighing night down. It could be Hades or hell, the fires burning, unslaked, despite seeming pools there to tantalize. Poetic justice meted by the gods whose words are cryptic, riddling rhymes.

Now, green light, red light, deadly game. You who loved cars, on foot, and struck—snakebit or demon tree, regardless of pedigree, all indifferent. From the field to the street, dangers lurk.

Never a fan of blood and gore. My own gashes I leave unattended, ignored. So what I wonder pushed me to where you’d be, fallen, bloodied, broken. I knew too well what I might see were I to find an opening, traverse the miles of caves and tunnels, get past the natural and unnatural guardians, the dark and dogs.

The seekers have been lovers or sons, all grown men, kings and princes, poets, heroes. There are no stories of women excavating Hades. Abducted goddesses and queens have no say, no magic words that entrance their captors, switch their fates. There are no stories of sisters tracking brothers, though Cassandra could see hers in defeat, her father’s fate, her mother’s loss. It’s not as if anyone listened. Words, just words, however true.

How much easier to slip in, as if by mistake, an absentmindedness. Excuses make a story, too.

I got lost, but now I’m here. I didn’t see the yellow tape. Monsters? Really? Three heads—you’re not serious. Can I pet him? Does he bite?

Is that all you have to say for yourself?

I could try to sing my thoughts or put them plain, jumbled as they are. But I don’t want to offend you more than I have. And I don’t know what you’d hear. Greek logos, poesis. Latin lingua, poeta.

What do you see? What would you say to you if you were me? Would your curiosity get the better of you to presume to ask for one little peek? Now that I’m here somehow, I’d like to see what there’s to see.

What if you see what you don’t want to see, want to save what can’t be saved, to know what can’t be known.

I’ll weep. Isn’t that what women do? Then I’ll turn around and close this door.

You can never close the door, no matter what you see, do not see.

about the author // Sandy Feinstein