Rebecca Anderson

Book of the Maybe-Living

after the “Egyptian God Names” from Book of the Dead

I.

My mama’s parents and their mamas and daddys, back as far as I can see, created us, named us
words made from blue-knuckled fear of their own mirrored images.

II.

The line between living and dead is a strand of silk, where my family weaves into being the
words my grandparents drawl in fake-shushes and tongue clicks.
The smart one.
The pretty one.
Not so bright.
Light in his loafers.
Fat-like-Pam, with a pig nose.

III.

We shroud our bodies in our home-hewed silks, sitting down to fried chicken dinners and
elephants too large not to sit at the head of the table, in a wooden chair sticky with nicotine-tar
and memory.           
Such a good girl.
Has beer in the evenings
Looks like Mama.
Acts like Big Mama.
Too much, too loud.

IV.

We-of-the-names speak platitudes broader than an electric summer sky, in the company of my
grandparents, and bear on them names darned in sock wool.
Mama.
Nana.
Daddy.
Fucker.

V.

We, the snake that swallows its own tail. Ouroboros, until the blood line curves.

(sublime) or, in the eye of destroy

i saw an art installation  // they took inconsequential paintings  // trite hudson valley school
sublime, with indistinct trees & jag. ged    clif
fs  //

burned them half up, melted oils & black edges, leaving dripp
ing

gilded frame // i hated it,

but you made me remember what it felt like to look in the eye of destroy // avert
your eyes, pull your hand back,

pinch your nose shut, same as the feeling // standing over the ocean,

thinking                                   what a delight the
plunge could be //

falling

ecstasy

quicker than sunlight can meet your eye // then nothing // florid

nothing.

Rebecca Anderson is a writer, visual artist, and mental health clinician who works and writes from a small farm in central Maine. She is an MFA candidate at Mississippi University for Women's low-residency creative writing program where she is a poetry editor for Ponder Review. She was nominated for Best American Short Stories 2019 and has had recent work featured in Waxing & Waning, Passengers Journal, Bacopa Literary Review, and Jokes Review. Instagram: @rebeccatellsstories