Author: Alice

I cook; I write; I feminist.

The Gift

“Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?”
— Ovid, Metamorphoses


Disregard what poets tell you. 
They hear the thump of their own hearts
and think they have discovered a universe.
Or presume that my beloved, musician to the gods
who never flubbed an entrance in his life,
might in eagerness miscount the beats remaining
to lift his wife back out of death.
Turn for me too soon, an accident.

You living march toward darkness
like a parade, joyous and cacophonous
and blind. Whereas I have already worn my shroud.
And I have already tasted ashes.
The sunlight you steep in cannot thaw bones
already chill with such fore-knowledge.

See the truth. In his final triumphant crescendo,
Orpheus heard a single word fall
from my mouth like a stone:

“Turn.”

And true love did. 

~e alice isak

Where will you be at 5:30 tonight?

Rallies are being held across the country, on this eave of the House’s impeachment vote, to call on Congress to uphold their oaths and to impeach and remove the narcissistic thug who has turned our political system into a multi-national criminal enterprise.

Organized by MoveOn.org and local activists, these “Nobody Is Above the Law” events provide us all with an opportunity to take a public stand and make our position on this critical issue unmistakably visible. (To find a rally near you.)

Unsure what difference public protest can make? SHOW UP. Convinced that the fix is already in, in the Senate? SHOW UP. Feeling defeated after enduring the last three years of this sh*t? GODSDAMN SHOW UP.

Turning public opinion includes turning our own opinions.

Convincing others that their voices matter starts with convincing ourselves that our own voices do still matter.

Constant resistance is a hard, often demoralizing posture to hold, day after day. Calls to elected officials can feel like a lonely, all-by-myself process. But. We. Are. The Majority. We have laws, and the Constitution, and diversity, and need, and fricking RIGHTEOUSNESS on our side.

Come stand with me today.

I promise I’ll be standing with you, too.

Medea Before the Argonauts

Somewhere in a story, not yet knowing Jason’s name, Medea dreams of floating away across the wine-dark sea into adventure. Her brother’s dismemberment yet awaits her, and the scattering of his parts upon the ocean like torn bread tossed to ducks. Dragon-teeth remain unplanted, a father’s treasures unravished. Many years and many tales not-yet-told lay between her in this moment and the slaughtering of rivals with sartorial poison, the kebab’ing of sons on barbeque skewers to serve at their father’s remarriage feast.

Do you believe for one moment she dreams unbloodied?

Even before the evils, back when her smiles were still Glenda-the-good-witch charming, Medea caught the mind’s eye. More than Jason ever could, that milquetoast memorable for theft and desertion, and capturing the love of a woman so far beyond him that only rankest misogyny stifling to stillborn our daughters’ horizons explains it.

I would be Medea, if I could. Even in the before, yes. And in the after, a thousand thousand yeses. I would stand bathed in blood and vengeance; I would know the dangers of disobeying and fling myself regardless from an Olympic peak.

Wait. No.

Not regardless.

Regard-full.

Continue reading “Medea Before the Argonauts” →

Awe

Brief meditation on the current news and the nature of survival. (Heads up for topic of sexual assault/triggering/Epstein.)

♦ ♦ ♦

Yesterday, I read the charges filed against co-defendents Epstein AND Trump for their numerous violent sexual attacks on the same 13yo girl in 1994. It was awful, but I’m used to awful—and the almost-clinical tone of most legalese is generally easier to get through than more evocative writing on the same subject.

And then there were a few words, a halfway-rendered visual image in my head. . . suddenly I’m dizzy, light-headed : my arms are burning : : it hurts to breathe : : :

More than 12 hours later, I still can’t say to you what those words were. Not that I don’t know, you understand. I am perfectly clear what tripped the trigger, but they are surrounded by a giant bubble of silence and darkness that threatens to pull me back in each time I reach to pull those words out.

I’ve been here before.

Maybe you have too. In which case, we both know we’ll be here again, at some unpredictable time.

Expectation of the unexpected.

Continue reading “Awe” →

Poison Apple

“Wanna bite?” the old woman asked,
holding out her cherry-red confection
polished and gleaming as a new Corvette
or a little girl’s patent leather shoes
on Sunday morning.

Should’ve tipped me to the truth, that glow alone.
Nothing from nature shines straight from the tree,
the earth, the ocean. Not before violence:
the pearl deslimed of its oyster’s flesh,
coal hewn from the depths and lit ablaze.
Even fruit does not reveal its juicy glisten
until split open by greedy teeth.

But I was tired and not attending as I should.
It’s long days, caring for grown men small enough
to resemble children—or call them children
grown destructive enough to resemble men. No matter.
Princess is only a title that escapes drudgery
when some other woman’s close to hand.

What I’m saying is:
Maybe I did notice, after all.
Maybe I did understand.

Maybe I ate it anyway.

~a.i. Continue reading “Poison Apple” →