by Lynne Friedman
Penetralia
You might not even have seen me, a little lost one, had the moon been a little less high above us, had it not shone down on the rocks and set my bare shoulders in relief against the water. Your crest illuminated, like calling to like. Could you lift me, antlers like hands, scoop me from the mud and ice?
You descended the bank, only one set of legs, not two as I imagined with the crown you wore. You held out a hand and I swam toward you, unbound as if you alone had willed it.
I was certain I was small enough when I reached you to be cradled in the cupping bone, but you pulled me instead into your arms, rubbed the chill from my skin as though it could never have touched you, and soon it fell easily from me.
We walked together a very long time. There was a house, a fire burning inside. I did not think your antlers could pass through the slim door, but perhaps they were truly made of light, as you did not even need to duck your head.
You draped me with a robe like a blanket. You asked me if I knew where I had been. I feared I was still stuck there.
You lowered your head, and my palms were full of velvet. If that was not the softest part of you, then I would never be able to face the harshness outside the door once I got my hands on the rest.
Jerica Taylor is a non-binary neurodivergent queer cook, birder, and chicken herder. Their work has appeared in Postscript, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Crow and Cross Keys, and they have a prose chapbook forthcoming from GASHER Press. She lives with her wife and young daughter in Western Massachusetts. Twitter @jericatruly.
Lynne Friedman’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Booth Western Art Museum (GA), Galleria Nacional (Costa Rica), the James McNeil Whistler Museum and numerous solo shows in New York City including Noho Gallery and Prince Street Gallery among others in the Chelsea District of NYC. Additionally her work was selected for the U.S. Department of State Art-in-Embassies Program for Djibouti, E. Africa and Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her work is in many corporate and private collections including Pfizer, McGraw Hill, IBM, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, Pace University, Ritz Carleton Hotels and City National Bank. She has received seven artist residency grants to work in Spain, Costa Rica, Ireland, Southern France and New Mexico. She received a BA and MFA in Art from Queens College, an Ed.D. from Columbia University and studied at the New York Studio School. Previously a college art teacher she now works full time painting.