by Emalene Loren
I Have No Fear of Flesh
I am cautioned by a friend not to write about the soul,
but when my mother asked for eggs at the French restaurant,
there were none. She removed the middle embryo, my sister.
No child could cut into a swollen yolk without letting the vein
bleed onto the plate. I remember us standing at the plate
glass mirror. We bled no tears, she envisioning
her mother’s round face, short bangs. I pulled at her hem,
un-birthed cotton green, buttons cloth undone, her hands
small. The closet split open, the clothes flew out, flew out
the window. I wanted to fly out the window, fix her eyebrows,
shave her sprouting chin hairs in the nursing home where
truth tucked into coverlet threads. No, I waltzed with soup
around the corner, delayed the visit, teared buttered rye,
heard her calling inside the yeasty holes. After she died,
I heard the energy healer begin the weight of smokey quartz,
rose quartz, on legs, heart, forehead, her hand on my pelvis.
She burped a rocking chair, sang, Birth and death, come
into the room, a crow meowing a keyhole, electric impulse
poured toe to head. Ebony stone with white striations,
my mother without naming, rising out of me.
My mother rose out of me, a birth reversal. Poured
head to toe into a room of white stone with ebony
striations. Later she became a crow meowing a keyhole,
an electric impulse, when the energy healer burped a rocking
chair, sang, Birth and death, come rose quartz. Placed
stones on my legs, heart, forehead, placed a hand on my pelvis,
releasing the weight within smokey quartz. I heard her
calling inside the yeasty holes. Was this penance?
Before my mother died, I hid around the corner, delayed
the visit, tore a thick slice buttered rye instead of folding
truth into coverlet threads. I waltzed with soup
rather than shaving her sprouting chin hairs, delayed
sitting at the nursing home window. I wanted to fly
out the window, did not want to fix her caterpillar eyebrows,
and the closet split open, the clothes flew out, un-birthed
cotton, cloth buttons. Her small hands had memorized
her mother’s round face, short bangs, so when I pulled
at her hem, she stared at us in the mirror, stared at her mother.
And in the dining room she envisioned blood
on the plate, cut into the swollen yolk without letting the vein
burst, middle embryo she had removed, my sister.
Laurel Benjamin is the author of Flowers on a Train (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025), a finalist for the Cider Press Book Award and an Honorable Mention for the Small Harbor Publishing Laureate Prize. A San Francisco Bay Area poet, she is active with the Women’s Poetry Salon and is a reader for Common Ground Review. She founded and leads Ekphrastic Writers, a group dedicated to writing and community. Publications include: Pirene’s Fountain, Lily Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Taos Journal of Poetry, CALYX. Her work has also been anthologized in Women in a Golden State (Gunpowder Press, 2025), among others. She invented a secret language with her brother.
Emalene Loren has an affinity for long lost spaces, places, and lovers. Staying true to her Iranian heritage, she has turned to the arts — both visual and literary — as a means to express her conceptual pursuit of love and romance. Emalene is currently based in North America, as she flushes out her primary project “Madeline,” a character of burlesque performance and exotic dance, which uses her focus in intimate connection and aesthetics to build her future. You can follow her journey on Instagram @iloveyoucomecloser.