Witching Hour x Fools: Writer Ellie Zupancic
Ellie Zupancic is an interdisciplinary artist and poet. She lives in Iowa City where she studies English & creative writing and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Fools Magazine. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ghost City Review, Burning House Press, A Velvet Giant, Dream Pop Journal, and others. Find her Twitter @misszupancic.
Zupancic’s work “Wisconsin in June” previously appeared in A Velvet Giant and “My Father Keeps a Wooden Bat Under His Bed for My Childhood” will appear in the upcoming issue of Mirror Magazine.
My Father Keeps a Wooden Bat Under His Bed for My Childhood
Here is the argument: it is
a quiet link that keeps me
here and brings me back, no
alarming tremor.
I ask for permission
to exist in this
light. Instead, there is only
all the indigo in the world,
my body gone into it.
Is the weapon
any different from the television
in the garage, always on, always glowing
indigo into black, glowing
to where it yields dark?
I have plans to lift the bedsheet,
ponder violence as a downwind.
Sidelong and still,
what have you done, leaving
that enduring thing?
I think of a wooden bat only
in the dark, unsure which is more
of a gesture to ending.
Wisconsin in June
My grandfather at his wedding
stood next to his bride
and this is chronicled
in photographs.
My grandfather died on a boat
when his son was four
and this is almost chronicled
in photographs.
In the light
of a cyclist’s reflectors
I do absolutely nothing.
In light of a boat accident
my father has a child.
Things are getting better
and better / worse and
worse. I wore every dress
I possibly could this week.
I painted my father’s father. A man
whom I never met.
Was it you mom
who woke me this morning,
and what for?
Why, when light already comes
in through the tiny basement
window onto me?
I’m not sure which is more
of a beckoning.
Woman stands in front of the light. The shape
of her comes on / to me / as a shadow.
In the name of violence and loss
there will be photographs of this
or there will be none.
At the brink of violence and loss
There will be memory
or there will be none.