Cameo, Curtain, Shoes


    She often thought


    that to be absolved


    into obliviously bright light


    or perfect, obsidian black


    would be her idea


    of both heaven and hell.


    Unlike most people


    she knew, she thought


    of them as nearly the same.


    To her, they were


    as inseparable as


    inhaling and exhaling.


    If death is the absence


    of breath,


    then, she weighed,


    what comes beyond that


    must be the terrible, sweet ache


    of lightheadedness.


    The pictures on her walls


    were nearly as blank as the paint.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.One favorite,


    a photograph entitled


    Weather Conditions, Antarctica,


    was a blur of white.


    In it, wisps of snow streaked


    along the bottom


    and seemed to slip under the frame.


    When she herself paled and greyed,


    she thought life was the borrowed brightness


    of the moon and that death


    was the darkness behind it.


    But she hoped,


    she hoped


    that it was more


    like a velvet curtain


    full with soft-bosom folds


    and that death was the person


    you most loved, hiding


    visibly behind them,


    betrayed by a pair of


    familiar, telltale shoes.


    -Kat Isacson