Flashbacks: Echoes of Past Issues
N C L R ONLINE
61
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
FINALIST, 2018 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE BY NILLA LARSEN
Post-Date Sunday I rip the silk sea you haven’t seen yet. That gorgeous fabric rattle. I go pee and beat off. In front of the mirror, I draw silver gills, three on each cheek. I record, share myself blowing and deflating, changing hues for my next mix of moods. Say each emotion has flavor – which do you suckle first? With aquarium awe, do you ask just right: you the kind of girl who wants to breathe under water? Already, I’ve missed moments to say what my body knew and didn’t reveal: hum on the tongue, hot trickle from exigent cunt. But I can’t just ink and hide. So I’ll lip your earlobes, kiss the beads of your bent spine, press down on your chest while I lap like water.
Late Bloomer (acrylic ink and collage; 9x13) by Nancy Smith
Still, it’s a risk. Do you cast me as this week’s squishy niche – somewhere you could forget yourself into? An unknowable? Could we writhe and slide in currents of control? Maybe we’ll grow electric suckers down our arms and legs – enlace our limbs, leave our skin buzzed and ringed.
A Denmark native, NILLA LARSEN earned an MFA in poetry from UNC Wilmington. She has received poetry fellowships from Rivendell Writers’ Colony and Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. This is her second time as an Applewhite Prize finalist, and her earlier finalist poem appeared in NCLR Online 2017. In 2018, she also placed honorable mention with two poems, one of which will be published in the 2019 print issue (the other was accepted for publication elsewhere before NCLR’s results were announced). Her poems have also been published in Midway Journal, Quarter After Eight, The Boiler, Nimrod, Crab Creek Review, Waccamaw, Asheville Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Born in Tryon, NC, NANCY SMITH made her home in Chapel Hill, NC, twenty-five years ago after completing a psychotherapist degree from UNC Chapel Hill. She dabbled in drawing and painting her entire life but began a serious pursuit of study under the tutelage of mixed media artist Luna Lee Ray ten years ago. Since then, she has shown her work in many group and solo shows in North Carolina. She is currently collaborating with women writers all over the world to give voice to women’s concerns and experiences in a 2019 gallery event called Women Speak. Find another sample of her art in the North Carolina Miscellany section of this issue and see more on her website.