"Like a lighthouse keeper drawn to his window to gaze once again at the sea, or a prisoner automatically searching out the sun as he steps into the yard for his hour of exercise, Ruth looked for the water mark several times during the day. She knew it was there, would always be there, but she needed to confirm its presence. Like the keeper of the lighthouse and the prisoner, she regarded it as a mooring, a checkpoint, some stable visual object that assured her that the world was still there; that this was life and not a dream. That she was alive somewhere, inside, which she acknowledged to be true only because a thing she knew intimately was out there, outside herself."
--Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon


"This far: alert, curious, more or less naked, without language, looking out over the green savannah. Now that was a leap, that's an outlook. You see an open space with trees whose branches spread out near the ground and bear fruit. You see a river or path that winds away out of sight, beyond the horizon. You see a few animals, you see changing clouds. You like what you see. Two hundred thousand years later you'll call this outlook 'beautiful' but the word's no use to you now.

"Time after time, in the field of evolutionary psychology, the children of today, from anywhere on earth, in test conditions, point to this picture, choose it over all others--forests, jungles, mountains, beaches, deserts--as the view most pleasing to them. What are they looking at? What are they really looking at?

"Well, evolutionary psychologists think they're looking at this: an open space (we can hunt) with trees (we can hide) whose branches spread out near the ground (we can escape) and bear fruit (we can eat). We see a river (we can drink, wash, eat) or path (we can travel) that winds away out of sight (we can learn), beyond the horizon (we can imagine). We see a few animals (we can eat more), we see changing clouds (rains will come again, we can tell one day from another), and, all in all, we like what we see. What evolutionary psychologists--and I--believe is that aesthetic preferences, those things we find beautiful, originate not in what renders life delightful or even endurable, but in what makes life possible."
--Glyn Maxwell, On Poetry


"Risa Takes a Look & Gives It Back"
( trigger warning: self-harm )
--Rachel Eliza Griffiths


"Bessie: Drinking Desire"
( trigger warning: sexual assault, addiction )
--Rachel Eliza Griffiths


"The Problem of Describing Mercy"
for Aisha & Aracelis

Consider the taste
of muscadines clinging
to a stem. That taste of color

a globe of water
opening your mouth's
power.

Teeth tear it, cursing
the tongue's work.

But mercy is not like that.

Beneath piano lids. Fingernails.
Some kind of filth.

How it might fit like a raspberry seed
along the wall of your molar.

Could you see it then? Without a telescope
from the windows of a moving train?

Why must the mule starve
to death in a field of sunflowers?

The mouth of a thing
that licks your wounds,
its teeth bared (just in case).

Consider the vows of hands
or the work of knuckles.

But mercy is not like that.

Epigraphs of sand pass through
at the waist. Breaking
the horizon of wire.

In a field of sunflowers
I saw a mule lie down.

And from its stall of bones
a shadow rose & covered
the length of the beast's cries.
But mercy is not like that.

I pressed my face against the window
of this train, fear running

a woman's mind upon the looping sutures
of grief. The apparition of light
settles dark animals into peace.

I fly apart inside an hourglass.
--Rachel Eliza Griffiths