Doesn’t the name bring to mind a dangerous woman
at a table in the back corner of a smoky bar? The kind
you walk into after disembarking from a six-month stint
trawling the ocean, your skin indiscernible from salted cod?
Aren’t you both afraid and compelled by her, cloaked as she is
in her dark gray hood, shoulders fledged in brown and slate
shawls, kohl-lined eyes, blackened lashes, the hem of her
rusty skirts brushing the floor, hiding – what? Her feet could be
bare, toes spreading for purchase on the planks. Her hands are
laid out like a Royal Flush on the beer-soaked tabletop, tending
her Tarot, her back a rod against the curved oak chair. Even as
you approach, you know the morning’s coffee will taste of
regret as well as chicory, but that isn’t enough to still
your tracks. It’s her eyes – steady, not the jitter of birds –
that have you, like a brew swallowed in one gulp, or a bowl
of steaming mussels in brine, shells slurped out and fingers
cracking blue wings, searching in the crevices for meat.
Rebecca Hart Olander’s poetry has appeared recently, or is forthcoming, in Brilliant Corners, Queen of Cups, and Yemassee Journal, and her critical work has appeared in Rain Taxi Review of Books and Valparaiso Poetry Review. She was the winner of the 2013 Women’s National Book Association poetry contest, judged by Molly Peacock. Rebecca lives in Western Massachusetts where she teaches writing at Westfield State University and is the incoming director of Perugia Press.
