She wasn’t sure what she beheld, why she was sad, or what she was hugging in her basket. Her eyes cast inward, contemplative. She neither flew nor stood, but seemed to hover, suspended. Was she trying to ascend? I don’t think so. She seemed earthbound–like the yellow moon, held in orbit by invisible bands. If she could speak, she might say she was not the rising kind. As if to say, I won’t leave you–and return–and leave you again, like him, always promising, then vanishing. Her greatest wish was more warm-blooded, human. She wanted to be remembered. Having no tongue, she knew she could neither come nor go in flames.
About the Author
Madelon Sprengnether is a poet, memoirist and literary critic who teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of two memoirs, Crying at the Movies and Rivers, Stories, Houses, Dreams; two chapbooks, La Belle et La Beteand Near Solstice: Mourning; two books of poetry, The Normal Heart and The Angel of Duluth; a co-edited collection of travel writing by women, The House on Via Gombito; and numerous works of feminist psychoanalytic scholarship. The Normal Heart was a Minnesota Voices competition winner. In addition, she has received awards from the Bush Foundation, The Loft Literary Center, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is currently completing a new memoir titled Great River Road: Memoir and Memory.