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Quote by Jennifer Givhan

“A shock of light. Unbelievable light. Blood orange swallowing the Albuquerque evening. A pulling in, taking back, reclaiming something stolen. Halfway home from her Saturday-morning lecture, Calliope Santiago drove across the river toward West Mesa and the Sleeping Sisters, ancient cinder-cone volcanoes in the distance marking the stretch of desert where she lived. Only now she could see no farther than two feet ahead of her from the blinding light, the splotches in her eyes bursting like bulbs in an antique camera. She blinked, not sure what she was seeing. She meant to cover her eyes. Meant to shield her sight.”

Quote by Jennifer Givhan

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Trinity Sight

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Jennifer Givhan

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“On the map of you, my fingers could always find the green hills, Wales. Cool waters and a shore of white chalk. The ancient part of you carved out of stone in a prayerful circle, sacrosanct. Your spine's a ridge I'd die climbing. If I could spread it out on my desk, I'd find the corner of your mouth where it pinches with my fingers, and I'd smooth it away and you'd be marked with the names of saints like all the old maps. I get the nomenclature now- saints' names belong to miracles”

“The rocks pummeled her belly. Something rose in her throat and when she tried to speak, from her mouth she dislodged a rock. She was made of rocks. She couldn’t move from the fossilized casing she’d once called her body. Heat crackled nearby. A conversation wove through the fire. A child’s sweaty body curled at her lap, chest rhythms of breathing, up and down, pressing against her. 'I didn’t want to believe it was happening again.”

“A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy grew in my mind, which turned the hairs on my head to filthy snakes, as though my thoughts hissed and spat on my scalp. My bride’s breath soured, stank in the grey bags of my lungs. I’m foul mouthed now, foul tongued, yellow fanged. There are bullet tears in my eyes. Are you terrified? Be terrified. It’s you I love, perfect man, Greek God, my own; but I know you’ll go, betray me, stray from home. So better by far for me if you were stone. I glanced at a buzzing bee, a dull grey pebble fell to the ground. I glanced at a singing bird, a handful of dusty gravel spattered down. I looked at a ginger cat, a housebrick shattered a bowl of milk. I looked at a snuffling pig, a boulder rolled in a heap of shit. I stared in the mirror. Love gone bad showed me a Gorgon. I stared at a dragon. Fire spewed from the mouth of a mountain. And here you come with a shield for a heart and a sword for a tongue and your girls, your girls. Wasn’t I beautiful? Wasn’t I fragrant and young? Look at me now. - Medusa by Carol Ann Duffy -”