Blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsSpring 2021  Vol. 20  No. 1
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an online journal of literature and the arts
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back CAROLYN GUINZIO

Plank

C told V what K told her and this is how she knew. What was it
like on the ship? Memory spikes from the bed of thought,
and though K was belly level on the boat, she caught
angles through the clothes worn soft edits to the manifest:
buried at sea. It was the tipping of the board held fast, the sliding
off, that V kept clear, that she tried to keep clear of while she sat
with her casted foot held up and waited out the length of another
Lent. I gave up driving, I gave up my own two feet. Think what
those people went through. She kept her eyes fastened on the sepia
skirts of the turn of the century, the last century, the x’s on the fore-
heads in lead instead of ash, until the six weeks were up.  


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