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NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
Winter 2023
2022 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE SEMIFINALIST BY ASTRID BRIDGWOOD
Cross-cut
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
I am on all fours on the floor of your dorm room Which is like church. Dreaming of my father Wearing four faces, taking me apart with a knife. I am walking home on all fours like a dog Aching like a gate rusted shut. I am kneeling Waiting for the crosswalk. Sky white-hot above Me like your hand over my mouth. A man offers His hand. A man carries a bag the size of a body. A man holds his hands like prayer before me, says Shit, girl. You look small. I am found and tagged Wearing my mother’s face, which you called angry My mother could eat you alive. In some dreams You deserve to be swallowed. I am locked-hollow Holding your hand over my mouth. I am missing You. I am holding my tongue, which is to say I cannot let you in. Your mother wears the face Of the woman she wishes I was. I am on all fours In front of your mother, waiting to be beaten. There is a bag the size of a body on the floor Of your dorm room. You will not raise your hand To stop her. Your mother rests her hand on my Back, feels blood through the tablecloth. I am shrunken-cowed. Dreams are like church: a place Where everything is half-whole and unmade. I Am bound and quartered hoping you can hear me Over your mother’s open mouth. I am drawn And devoured. I am on all fours teaching myself How to love you. This is the part where you kill me.
Here We Are #10 (platinum palladium print, 5x4) by Leah Sobsey
LEAH SOBSEY grew up in Chapel Hill and Durham, NC. She earned a BA in Anthropology and a minor in Studio Arts from Guilford College and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She is an Assistant Professor of Photography at UNC Greensboro. She has also taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, and the NC Museum of Art. She exhibits nationally, and her work is held in private and public collections, including the NC Museum of Art and Duke University Medical Archives. She is the co-founder of the Visual History Collaborative. She has received numerous honors and awards, and her work has appeared in national publications such as the New Yorker, Paris Review Daily, and Audubon Magazine.
ASTRID BRIDGWOOD’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Olney Magazine, Not Deer Magazine, Corporeal Lit Mag, and Ink Drinkers Poetry.