Ellen McCarthy

June 27, 2019

“The Optimist” by Emily SperberPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, May 2019: Editor’s Choice

 

Desert Road by Ellen McCarthy

Image: “Desert Road” by Ellen McCarthy. “The Optimist” was written by Emily Sperber for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, May 2019, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Emily Sperber

THE OPTIMIST

He tried to make it better
by saying at least this
was the good kind of desert,
not the bad kind and I did not
bother asking him the difference.

He tried to make it better
by saying that at least I,
his wife, didn’t have to
give the long haul trucker
a handjob for a ride to the
towing company we didn’t
even know would be there
and I didn’t want to bring up the
fact that we were still walking
and the long haul trucker was
already down the road.

He tried to make it better
by saying that the clouds
looked like cotton candy—
blue & pink puffs close
enough for the taking—
so, in his youth, he obviously
didn’t take fistfuls of the sugar
in his mouth only to throw
up in the carnival’s trash
can, those blue & pink puffs
not so puffy at the bottom
of the garbage and while
I made this distinction
apparent to him, he rolled
his eyes and twisted his
feet, in one fluid motion,
in the direction of, hopefully,
a gas station because, he said,
like a ringing bell in our
marriage, he was only
trying to make it better.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
May 2019, Editor’s Choice

__________

Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “I just loved how vividly these two characters jumped out of the image and into life. It’s the precision of the details that work this magic—the carnival trash can, his full-body eye-roll. I also love that I can’t decide who to side with—neither of them, I suppose. Somehow I think they’ll make it out, though.”

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June 20, 2019

“The Years We Lived in the Desert” by Megan MerchantPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, May 2019: Artist’s Choice

 

Desert Road by Ellen McCarthy

Image: “Desert Road” by Ellen McCarthy. “The Years We Lived in the Desert” was written by Megan Merchant for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, May 2019, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Megan Merchant

THE YEARS WE LIVED IN THE DESERT

I cooked without sugar, left the picture frames empty,
learned how to speak fluently about juniper,

elm, and pine to fill that dust-space. We married, deboned
fish on the back porch, drank wine

with fruits infused and I lied openly when you asked about
my dreams, what woke me shaking and soaked.

Vacancy is not an adequate splint for love. I was told to treasure
the red dust that grained in my hair and ears, the phantom

rain, the flat-earthers who gathered and measured the arc of sunset—
the shape of the world is as good of a religion as any,

but my god, have you heard the panged-song of coyotes, their
voice-wound loud, not afraid to tremble, not stomping

to smooth the cracks, or pausing in the open long enough
to pull the yucca spines from their skin.

The years we lived in the desert, I woke each day with a plan
to leave, drew maps of the land along the bottoms

of my feet, and practiced blurring into the infertility, not as an
art form, but as a relief.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
May 2019, Artist’s Choice

__________

Comment from the artist, Ellen McCarthy: “I shot the picture sitting on the back of a truck, struck by the radiant blast of two colors and two simple shapes and felt a jolt of joy. So it startled me that this image aroused so many poems about disquiet or dejection—’their/ voice-wound loud.’ My chosen poem’s first line yanked me by the hair into its doleful world: ‘I cooked without sugar, left the picture frames empty …’ By the last line, I had forgotten my original vision and was nodding in agreement: Yes, yes, the desert can ravish us in more ways than one. It’s a land where we must always have an escape plan.”

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