.
Unmaking Adam
Adam did it well,
there are names
all over this planet,
names inscribed,
embossed,
signed into books,
onto baseballs and checks
and paintings, names that
move and shape and hide
what is really there;
these names, they are
(in all cases) stage names--
Hitler, Ghandi,Madonna--
they are brands,
they are made so you
can be found and held,
so that you will
remain
a size that is catchable;
do not let a word be
all you mean;
do not let it
make you (it has already!);
it is one costume only,
one purple sheet and
feather hat,
one leader, believer, dancer;
Christ was not Christ,
nor do you live on a line,
or through another's body,
in a mouth or mind;
be as large and bright as you are
in every direction,
(not just left to right
or right to left)
be that which precedes names,
that which blinded Adam
through the trees
and made him mute
Bio:
Julie Beckham's fiction has been published in Ottawa Arts Review, Grimm Magazine, and Boston Literary Magazine. She has also been short listed for the 2009 Fish Short Story Prize and has received an Honorable Mention in the Glimmer Train 2009 Very Short Fiction Competition. She has an MA in Comparative Literature from the University of Georgia is currently based in London.
(author retains copyright)
Return
