Memory sleeps in the basement with a sleeping bag and a flashlight, and a brand new pack of Nutter Butters, tornado sirens blaring, the power still working, five of Memory’s favorite VHS tapes dragged down the stairs. Memory sits criss-cross-apple-sauce and repeats words from the first film.Bottomless. Fathoms. Reprimand. Shore. Daughter. The VCR’s a little finicky and the screen a little fuzzy, but actually, Memory is happy and not at all scared, like the time Memory fell off the boat without a life preserver, the way the warm water wrapped around Memory like a promise and filled Memory’s open eyes like a blindfold and entered Memory’s mouth like a lullaby. Memory wants to stay in this perfect dark like the bottom of a lake, here, beneath the house where Memory can’t see out the windows, where Memory can’t see the rain fall or the wind blow, can’t see the blue sky turn red with rise and set. Memory likes having a reason to hide.
This excerpt is from the chapbook In the Wake by Ariel Machell (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/in-the-wake-by-ariel-machell/
In the Wake—like river water mingles silt, fish, and stone—blends #narratives of #loss, #memory, and #environment into one. It rages, whispers, and stills as it flows in and out of prose poetry and lyric. It is a #hybrid work that centers the #Willamette #river—or memory of the Willamette river—as its characters once centered it in their lives, examining the #nature of friendship, time, grief, love, and to a certain extent, obsession…and how, ultimately, all of these things dissolve.
Ariel Machell is a poet from California. She received her BA in English from the University of Southern California, where she was the recipient of the 2018 University of Edinburgh Fellowship, and the Gene and Etta Silverman Family Award. She later received an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon in 2021. She is an Associate Poetry Editor for Northwest Review. Her work has been nominated for Best New Poets, and has been published in Brink, Birdcoat Quarterly, The McNeese Review, The Pinch, SWWIM, The Shore, Up the Staircase Quarterly and elsewhere. She currently resides in Los Angeles.
The Paddock Review 