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Arla Shephard Bull

August 1, 2018

WusGood: “What’s your fav thing bout being Slytherin?”

Arla: “(My) housemates’ and instructor’s IDGAF attitudes.” 


Cousins:

 

scratchy field wielding wet

heat — blank sky, brown faces snagged

 

near a thick gash in the dry

Earth: a creek, syrup of chemical

 

stench. it’s December, but swamp sweat

snakes, incremental, down walls

 

of the Manila hotel, curled eels

around us,       and here unchaperoned       in the open, tick of hours

 

toward their home, or something

like it — family found, my people, forgotten

 

stitches. inside, unseeing: empty

room for seven souls to eat and bathe

 

and sleep, perhaps. shushed. there’s more

behind a printed wall. what’s the opposite

 

of naked? cacophony of colors,

stuffedspaceforfourbabes,andtoys(your)toyscorralled

 

everywhere — your younger self, beloved,

evidence of your spoil. nobreathing. have you ever

 

seen a graveyard

of your childhood?


Familial:

whisper twice, aviam ortum, in the dark, prayer

for the absent conversations shushed

out by disease and time and unchaperoned

guilt. dear grandmother, there’s a fissure

lying before us, starlit canyon of trembling

syllables unspoken. can you hear me breathing?

 

praise the Gods for bonds created, breathing

jagged for this spell — localibus, ama: prayer

for the almost souls who climbed, trembling

from this life before it could begin. shushed,

they leave us grasping blankly at the fissure

that remains, precious chasm still, unchaperoned.

 

inhale until your lungs demand unchaperoned

air, and hold this promise, barely breathing:

joyous memories do reside beneath the fissure

of forgotten family. we shout this prayer —

i await a patron, dun stallion protector, shushed

by the quiet solitude of secrets, trembling.

 

ask the ancestors for help to tie the trembling

fathers and their children together, unchaperoned

in the wake of their wrongdoing. here, shushed

we’ll stay and curse their steady breathing,

ignorance of the holy gift of bonds. prayer

murmured softly: percuro, heal the fissure.

 

drink shallow plaintive sips to mend the fissure

of split motherhood: she held you trembling,

crying and in love, lonely answer to her prayer,

decade in the making; she stayed unchaperoned

and still, for hours just to watch you breathing —

between the swigs, repeat, patawarin ko. shushed.

 

yield to the planetary motions that bring us, shushed,

to the brink of comprehension that a fissure

interrupted does more good than borrowed breathing.

we’ll move toward a tower, cracked and trembling

to hear these gasps: kata-la-vaino, an unchaperoned

request for understanding, a loaded, hopeful prayer.

 

now we rest. shushed gratitude and trembling

knowledge of our fissures wake us, unchaperoned

to the breathing loves that link us in this tender prayer.


Arla Shephard Bull writes creative nonfiction and poetry in the Pacific Northwest, while also working as a freelance reporter. Her creative nonfiction essays have appeared in Reservoir Journal and Maganda Magazine. She is a fellow of the VONA/Voices writer’s workshop for writers of color and is a University of Washington graduate. When not writing, she spends time eating with her husband, playing with her Dachshund Scottish terrier puppy and daydreaming of her next adventure.

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Wusgood Mag’s vision is to develop a longstanding sustainable space for underserviced urban artists to have their work published and shared publically. Beginning digitally, Wusgood hopes to grow into an online & print magazine that pays contributors and staff.
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