Heart’s Double Labyrinth Fiction
Marco Etheridge Wien, Wien, Austria
The narrow passages between my shop and your terrace are a stone maze baking under the midday sun. The air is a weave of shimmering dust intertwined with shafts of sunlight. I shutter my shaded cubicle and enter the labyrinth, a twine-bound package held before me. My kurta is clean, and my hair combed. These hands bearing your parcel are scrubbed, fingernails cleaned and pared. Without thought, I retrace the path to your door. My heart’s compass guides my feet down unmarked passages and around oblique turnings. I know the way, as my blood knows the skein of my body’s veins and arteries. And yet, even in the knowing, my mind etches a map into my memory, an identical tracing many layers deep. Then I am standing at your doorway and you are there. Only formalities and the package are exchanged. As you take the parcel, my fingertips do not brush your hennaed hands. Our eyes do not linger. Turning away from you, I do not look back. You do not wave farewell.
hand sets the moon spinning above the sea, and the tide pulls me. I am a stalking tiger, hunting you. Celestial gravity, animal hunger, love; does it matter which is the truth? At my feet, the sweet rot of garbage. Above my head, the fragrance of wall-climbing bougainvillea and draped hibiscus. I ignore both putrescence and perfume. As a moth called to a single blossom, I search only for you. Then I am on your terrace. You step from your doorway. Our limbs intertwine under the night jasmine, under the celestial glow. Your hands weave the air before my eyes, hennaed tracery turned to moonstone. We are become one, candle and moth, wick and flame. You pull, I push. Our dance carries us over your threshold. The door closes, sealing us together and within.
Night alters everything. My footsteps are drawn to your door, passing through a dreamscape of shadow overlaid with darkness. The path to your heart is a labyrinth, and my desire the compass. I seek you or your love calls to me. Your
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Nosferatu’s Bride
A response to “Nosferatu’s Serenade” by Dana Gioia Poetry
Kerri-ann Torgersen Livermore, California, USA
I am the girl that you cannot refuse. The darkness is calling. It is I you must choose. I’ve seen your face in dreams I remember, eyes glowing red like smoking hot embers. You are the truth that invades my soul. My spirit is broken. Make me feel whole. You are the chime ringing through my ears. You are the flame drying all of my tears. You are the hunger I once denied. The time, it has come. Make me your bride. I am the girl in a pit of despair. Free me from life, this mortal nightmare. I’ve heard you inside me speak in my dreams, Hollering on hilltops, in memories are screams. I see my future in a dim crystal sphere. I know what you bring. And I am still here.
