Tableware by C.S. Mathews

There's a cosmic unraveling

in time

a split that cuts through the fabric

like a knife through cheese

next to wine so fine it breathes 

-release 

and hold the tableset together

but a glass breaks and can't be replaced 

-so you piece it out 

the intervals of familial liminals

the empty spaces

that in space exist 

that’s where it rips. 

The family unravels 

to show the strings that waves make

and all it takes is one thread cut

until everything is fucked 

and your stuck sifting through lives

in the form of boxes

that stack to the sky

-Atlas

And they tell you its fine

-passing

between states of mind

-crafting 

realities based on finality

-writing 

eulogies for the ones you love

just because 

you want to be ready

to split their lives like fabric 

and sell the knife to a stranger. 

Remember Starlings

I starred at a puddle of blood in the parking lot 

across from my apartment

and saw in it a flock of starlings 

and in them I saw my own blood splattered 

across the floor

from where the lashes tore me

my sense of me 

and the starlings swarm in flight

black as the night is bright in stars

that swim in skies the colour of rust

dried blood 

on pavement in front of us at 5 

when we can't tell if he’s alive

until he dies 

and I’m helpless 

until I'm running to her body 

twisted 

through traffic 

streaming 

and she’s breathing

as bird fly by- 

and my tears are rewetting 

pavement dry,

rusty as that desert sky.

C.S. Mathews is the coauthor of Fearful Architecture and an editor for The Grindstone Magazine and Wheel Works Publishing. Having cut her teeth as an independent journalist and medic during the 2020 protests, their work focuses heavily on activism, their indigenaity, truama, and her experiences being transgender.