The Séance
by Terri Brown-Davidson
In the curtain-shrouded womb-room
Of a séance, fingers, evolving, separate from hands,
Heads from necks; even breaths levitate
Though the peripheral
Vision goes last. Everything’s non-gruesome.
Clock-watching is not allowed; the dead
Know no time but exist in the scant spaces
Between the wallpaper and the walls, compressed
Weirdly but as real as the murmuring the Five
Cultivate nightly.
Here, somewhere, Hilma’s ten-year-old sister still exists,
A susurration
Behind crack-riddled plaster, a maple wood table
Ripe for levitation. In the New Realm,
There is no difference between the flesh-bodied
And objects: everything is sentient. A glance,
A notebook riddled with thumbnail sketches
Brightening into myriad shapes, crescents that mutter of
Dessicated wombs, crosses that evoke black-gray skies
And not Jesus, who represents the worst
Of all dualities.
Terri Brown-Davidson's first book of poetry, The Carrington Monologues, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in hundreds of journals, including Triquarterly, Able Muse, Denver Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, and others.
