Judith Luongo
Catching lightning in a bottle
It is past midnight & I think of all the ways your arms have singled me out for loss, your still body is sprawled across the bed & I am thinking of all the ways you do not exist here with me,
Before the day breaks , the sky breaks into tears & there is thunder & lightning & everything that propels me to coil my body into you, our body intertwined reminds me of planets that do not belong together,
Wishful thinking, I know,
I have a number of things that I know are
impossible, like catching lightning in a bottle,
we do not outgrow some dreams even as adults,
like having a bottle of elixir that raises up my dead mother, I know there should be no space in me wishing for the dead,
I am no Jesus Christ,
I am no savior,
I am nobody,
I am learning how to cut my coat into sizes, even
though I forget I do not have one,
What I mean is,
Why should I ask for bread when I can have crumbs?
Ejiro Elizabeth Edward is a female writer from Nigeria. A recipient of the SBMEN fellowship, she has been published in Ice Floe Press, stone of madness, serotonin, and Agbowo. She loves to read, dance, travel and look for her friends trouble. She teaches ballet and loves to be by the sea. Find her on Twitter: Ejiroedward552 On Instagram: Diasporapoetry.
Judith Luongo has spent many years searching for clues about how we manage to keep evolving and surviving as imperfect, conflict ridden beings. Her art is informed by her practice as a Creative Arts Therapist and Psychoanalyst as well as by her many years of teaching Creative Arts Therapists. Judith’s work has moved through a period devoted to dreamy landscapes to character studies through portraiture and the figure. For the past five years she has been passionate about an abstract expressionist approach as she seeks to deepen her inquiry into the palpable presence of that which is unspoken and unspeakable. Her work has been shown at Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition; Pratt Institute; and Michael David & Co.