Betrayal

2021 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE FINALIST

BY CHARLES MURRAY

All those months apart I made a patchwork idol of you from a thousand fragments of memory and bowed down to my beloved.

Forgive me if on the day of your returning I betrayed you by running off with the stranger you had become.

Reconfiguration 55, 2021 (analog silver gelatin photograms, collaged, 55x48) by Lacey McKinney

CHARLES MURRAY taught English at Western Carolina University, then worked as a software developer for thirty-six years before rediscovering a writing vocation in retirement. He lives with his wife in Charlotte, NC. LACEY MCKINNEY resides in Upstate New York. Her awarded art residencies include McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, NC, Post Contemporary in Troy, NY, and Fremantle Arts Centre in Western Australia. Her work has been exhibited in Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY; UNC Charlotte; and Urban Zen in New York, among others, as well as in Virginia, Washington, and throughout New York State. Her work can be found in numerous private collections and has been featured in publications such as Huffington Post, ARTnews, Art Zealous, and Cultured Magazine. She was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Keep NYS Creating grant in 2020. See more of her work on her website.