THE SILHOUETTE WOMAN by Christine Stoddard
They say she was radiant, a woman who rose with
the mourning doves and shone throughout the day.
the mourning doves and shone throughout the day.
She loved growing flowers and rushing through meadows.
When she weeded her garden, she kept the dandelions to press them.
She also made her own candles and stationery.
She didn’t cook, so she worked out a trade with the neighbor:
She would grow herbs and vegetables for the two families to share
if the neighbor did all the cooking.
She would grow herbs and vegetables for the two families to share
if the neighbor did all the cooking.
She was my great-grandmother, Lucy.
I hear these quaint stories, but my picture
of my great-grandmother is incomplete.
of my great-grandmother is incomplete.
I have never seen a photo of her. I build images
of her in my mind, pixel by pixel.
of her in my mind, pixel by pixel.
My mother never met her.
Lucy died before my mother was born and
she died when my grandmother was young.
she died when my grandmother was young.
Some say her hair was blonde; others say it was light brown.
Were her eyes blue? Or were they green?
What did she think of in quiet moments by herself?
What did she hate?
What brought her pain?
Did she ever feel like she couldn’t breathe? Like her lungs were ghosts?
Did she ever scream in the night until her face burned?
Did she ever yearn after lost loves or dream of life on the moon?
My great-grandmother was a human, after all.
I mostly wonder if we shared the same flaws,
if she somehow passed hers down to me.
if she somehow passed hers down to me.
Am I the accumulation of all her hopes, all her terrors?
Am I the realization of the woman she could’ve become?
How much of my journey is mine and how much of it is hers?
I cannot fly into the past--hers or anyone else’s--
but I can grow into the future.
but I can grow into the future.
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Christine Sloan Stoddard is a Salvadoran-Scottish-American writer and artist originally from Virginia. She is the founding editor of Quail Bell Magazine, an art and culture magazine that has appeared in Time Out New York, Washington Post Express, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and beyond. Stoddard is also the author of Water for the Cactus Woman (Spuyten Duyvil Publishing), Belladonna Magic (Shanti Arts Publishing), Jaguar in the Cotton Field (Another New Calligraphy), Ova (Dancing Girl Press), Chica/Mujer (Locofo Chaps), Lavinia Moves to New York (Underground Voices), Mi Abuela, Queen of Nightmares (Semiperfect Press), and other titles.
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