Still Alive
after Clara Peeters
Morning brings small rain, and a small miracle: no line for entry at the Prado. There is a lull in the motion, and we venture into hallowed halls to see Giacometti’s skinny shadows. They are spindly critters that mimic our mannerisms as if we are somnambulists feeling our way frantically from room to room. We are sterile before Bosch, chaste before the other Mona Lisa, made gory by Goya’s grotesque black dreams. All is still until the still life, the hungry portent of want and need, the offering of fowl and sweetbreads. The saline grit of fish and of olives, earthy and generous, oval, and oily. Clarets of grenadine and red roses.
Lorette C. Luzajic is editor of The Ekphrastic Review. Her prose poetry and small fictions have been published in Cabinet of Heed, Litro, New Flash Fiction Review, Unbroken, and many more. Her flash story recently won first place in a contest at Macqueen’s Quinterly. Recent books are Pretty Time Machine: ekphrastic prose poems (Mixed Up Media Books, 2020) and a greatest hits collection, Salt (Cyberwit Books, 2021, India). Lorette is also an award-winning visual artist with collectors in at least 25 countries from Estonia to Peru. She lives in Toronto, Canada.