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NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
Winter 2023
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
2022 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE FINALIST BY MAUREEN SHERBONDY
Captain von Trapp in the Surgical Suite It’s Christopher Plummer in surgical scrubs holding a guitar instead of a scalpel. I tell him his version of “Edelweiss” is a favorite memory from my youth, that every man I later dated was held up to him in that one glowing moment and no one has compared to Captain von Trapp.
Ravel, 2019 (mixed media, 45x63) by Tim Lytvinenko
My present husband sings karaoke even though he lacks the voice; it takes a certain kind of man to belt out lyrics out of tune and in front of an audience. Christopher Plummer is about to remove my uterus. I tell him I have terrible doubts about his skill as a surgeon. Just because a person is talented in one arena doesn’t mean that ability spreads to other areas like medicine. Trust me, he says. The infusion into my veins is a bottle of my favorite gin. Feeling woozy, I shrug, realizing I no longer control either body or life. Before falling under I recall reading that “Edelweiss” was dubbed in by another singer. Is the illusion of talent just as good as the real thing? Too late to change doctors, I fade in the clean, white room, seeing star-like flowers rising as “Edelweiss” carries across the gurney and my uterus waltzes away from my body.
Raleigh, NC artist TIM LYTVINENKO is a photographer and printmaker. He earned a BS in Computer Science from NCSU and has fifteen years of experience in fine art and documentary photography. His work has been shown at Cameron Art Museum, Anchorlight Gallery, and 21c Museum Hotel in Durham, among others. He was recently commissioned to create work for the 66-foot-tall façade of The Dillion in Raleigh. His work is held in private collections across the East Coast and the South.
MAUREEN SHERBONDY is the author of several poetry collections, including, most recently, Lines in Opposition (Unsolicited Press, 2022) and Dancing with Dali (FutureCycle Press, 2020; reviewed in NCLR Online Winter 2022). Her work has appeared in Calyx, Upstreet, European Judaism, Litro, and other journals. She is also a fiction writer, and one of her short stories was a finalist in the Doris Betts Fiction Prize competition and published in NCLR 2007. She lives in Durham, NC.