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      April 21, 2022Angular BonesJeanie Tomasko

      Image: “Anonymous Was a Woman” by Natascha Graham. “Angular Bones” was written by Jeanie Tomasko for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2022, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
      I dreamed I gave you a snow globe
      and after the snow snowed
      and after the plows plowed
      you stood inside watching
       
      after the snow
      which was blue and had come from all directions
      you stood there watching
      with your impossible spine
       
      which was blue and directionless
      and it made me weep
      your impossible spine
      and its question of whether
       
      and what     it made me weep
      this dream and you in the impossible globe
      and the question of weather
      as in snow as in what will happen
       
      to this dream of an impossible globe
      you in the snow your hair a perfect storm
      as in snow as in what will happen
      to your angular bones
       
      you, snow, hair, perfect storm
      in this impossible dream globe
      and your beautiful angular bones
      after the plows have plowed

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the editor, Timothy Green

      “This was an especially strong month of submissions, but reading the top 25 over and over again, I kept coming back to this surprising pantoum. I could never have imagined the figure in the painting being trapped inside a snow globe, but once she was, she really was. There’s also something about the mood of the poem, a resolute sadness to the repetition that matched the curve of the woman’s spine—I couldn’t stop re-reading it.”

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