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Literature, PoetryDecember 7, 2016

White Flesh, Yellow Dust

Flotsam framed by footprint by William Crawford. Image courtesy the artist.

Flotsam framed by footprint by William Crawford. Image courtesy of the artist.

A desert winter, next to water, hearing nothing
but the river and the muttered morse-code

of birds through leaves, a language
that swirls in my ear, like water.

Listen.
Come summer, under a relentless sun

this wadi will crack open its thistled
silence as if silence

was all it could ever have known.
Now, in winter, the green dimples in wild

chamomile, white daisies
flooded with the fragrance of apples, only

not apples—something earthier,
baser, and bitter-smooth on my tongue. Monks

who for centuries knelt here, planted bed
after bed of chamomile, resting rough,

home-spun knees against grass
stained with the breath of vespers,

relaxing back on the scent said to expand
their prayers up and open

until they fill this blue
arc of sky.      Now there is just stillness,

a silence not quiet, but alive
inside the muted grace of winter light. I

stoop in a chamomile cluster, taste one
flower, then another. They rest, white flesh

and yellow dust in my palm, dust
on my tongue, dust.

I haven’t heard a human voice for days,

have only gazed into the unlocked jaws
of caves that sweat the moisture of centuries,

and still cling to last night’s rain. And what holds
me? Once it was my mother’s body, me deep

inside, covered and smooth within secret waters
of my own. Once I arrived as fresh

as this spawned odor of decomposing leaves, algae,
tadpoles and mud. And now? Now

there is this just this desert with its branches
of aquifers that flower and feed

this river, this winter, this green,
a green so clear, so quiet I can hear it grow

and with each exhale feel the essence of what
might still be possible—a blessing,

an earth soft with new growth, so yellow, so blue,
so complicated into molecules, the air tastes of it.

~ Rachel Heimowitz

Rachel Heimowitz is the author of the chapbook, ‘What the Light Reveals’ (Tebot Bach Press, 2014.) Her work has appeared in Poet Lore, Salamander, Crab Orchard Review, and Prairie Schooner. She was recently a finalist for the COR Richard Peterson Prize and she has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. Rachel received her MFA from Pacific University in Spring 2015.

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Poem of the WeekpoetryRachel HeimowitzWilliam Crawford

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One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

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