Tony Schanuel
Marriage Bed
You say, devilry on your face, you smell like linen in the morning. Lavender, sage and mint, my love? Or am I musk, the lingering scent of nightmare chased by morning light? Your fingertips dance across me. Am I rumpled and knotty, or starched and smooth from the heat of sleep? Is it flax you smell, that ancient botanic of rope and sail, its long stem birthing periwinkle flowers, ripped up by the root, laid green on the ground to bake golden as wheat, retted and soaked, scutched and hackled, the woody stalks returned to the field as my longest fibers are spun into yarn? Or am I the fabric, the weft and warp, the silken threads that bind us to each other, to others, to our children and theirs, to ancestors long gone? Wait, perhaps you speak of the marriage bed itself, the gold-and-white dog parked there as we snap and billow the freshly washed sheet, folding and tucking the corners as she hides beneath in the cool, in the dark, savoring the comfort we know so well.
Mary Schanuel has been a writer since she could hold a pencil and has published non-fiction, entertainment reviews, poetry and short fiction since she was 18. Her work has been published by the New York Times “At Home,” Working Mother, Organic Gardening, Los Angeles Daily News, The Heartbeat, FictionWeek Literary Review, LifeSherpa and St. Louis Public Radio. She has written two novels, and her poetry appeared in In the Moment – Writing from a Spacious Mind, an anthology of poems by the Missouri Zen Writers Group.
Tony Schanuel is an award-winning photographer and visual artist who has fused a professional background in photography, digital technology, and painting and mark making to create fine art that transcends those mediums. His work has been featured in Digital Imaging Magazine, Computer Graphic Magazine, Wild Heart Journal, St. Louis Design Magazine, and is a featured artist in Cyber Palette and Extreme Graphics, two books showcasing digital artists and their work. He has exhibited at the Florence Biennale and his art is held in private and corporate collections including the Fine Arts Museum of Houston permanent photographic collection.