We Continue Holding, A Girl, Ephemeral Nature of Love

art by JJ Cromer

by Isabel Hoin

We Continue Holding  
 
We bled many years ago and continue to bleed the deepest  red, 
our hips tender. We prayed to you, in that first moment  of 
womanhood— oh, that joyous moment— but you stayed still, a 
face of marble, never answering the calls we sent for comfort.  
 
Red, our hips tender. We prayed to you, in that first moment  
without our mothers. It is absence we search for in language, a 
face of marble, never answering the calls we sent for comfort.  
We want rings of language, a clot to visualize, to spin the mind.  
 
Without our mothers it is absence we search for in language.  
How to pass the cycle forward, the confusion of tongues no longer.  
We want rings of language, a clot to visualize, to spin the mind.  
Barthes wants us to talk about it as though it existed, so we try. 
 
How to pass the cycle forward, the confusion of tongues no longer.  Unravel 
shapes of yourself in our minds so we can sleep, heads heavy, as Roland 
wants us to talk about it as though it existed, so we try.  
We beg you to give us your hand outside this confinement we inhabit. 
 
Unravel shapes of yourself in our minds so we can sleep, head heavy, as we 
make our dissent down to this underworld, wooden steps rotten with tears. 
We beg you to give us your hand outside this confinement we inhabit,  to join 
hands in unity with all the mothers’, cycles ticking forward. 
 
We make our dissent to this underworld, down wooden steps rotten with tears. 
Red, our hips tender. We prayed to you, in that first moment, joining hands in 
unity with all the mothers’, cycles ticking forward; a face of marble, never 
answering the calls we sent for comfort.  


A Girl 
 	In response to Ron Mueck’s  
    	 	sculpture “A Girl” 
 
The naked baby girl enters the world underneath her mother with closed eyes.  
The naked baby, unlike other naked babies, lies upon the elevated concrete surface. Eyes 
 
meet her; not from above or below, but around. A spectacle of sorts, as if she is a trapped animal  
at a zoo. If she were to come back she would be the Veronica flower so she could use her eyes 
 
to stare back at the onlookers. How freeing it would feel, this opening of her world. To look and 
wonder. To sit in front of the blank page, reminiscing. Maybe she has dreams, her eyes 
 
wandering back and forth under eyelids, her dreams confined only to childhood and child 
impulses. Freud believed that a child’s impulses still live on in dreams. If she had the many eyes 
 
the Veronica Flower has, she could escape the confinements death gave her. She, too, may have 
been named after a flower, as is the Veronica Flower after Saint Veronica, who wiped His eyes, 
 
blood and tear-soaked, on their journey to Mount Calvary for His crucifixion. How eerie, 
walking to your death. Willingly placing yourself into an in-between place— the body, the eyes 
 
working until suddenly they don’t. How to reconcile this space of confinement, of purgatory. 
The mind feathers black with moments of the past, wondering what death holds. Open your eyes 
 
to the sky full of beginnings. Watch the crows fly above you while feet sink into the wet earth 
until they are lifted, floating. Your eyes begin to shut, slower and slower. Breathe. Let eyes 
 
fill with water from the body. Oh, how it provided for you in those times of existence. For 
everything that exists, exists through something or through nothing. My love, turn up your eyes.  
 
 
 
 
Ephemeral Nature of Love 
 
I imagine we met in another way, i.e., any other way. 
 
Any other way than we did— on a subway in the streets of 
New York, on the cobblestone streets of Italy, or even a 
bar— but no, it couldn’t have happened this way.  There is 
no tableau of me seeing you, eyes zooming in first on your 
face, streaming down to your gentle hands,  as they tend to 
do, like the Blood Falls in Antartica; the high  levels of 
iron(III) oxide-tainted saltwater flowing from  the tongue of 
Taylor Glacier. We, too, embody redness; yours is mine and 
mine is yours. It pours from my mouth,  connecting to 
yours— our spoken language. Would we still  share our 
separate plates of food? My fries taken by your  hands, my 
hands taking yours mid-stride. I ponder all  the ways we 
“could have,” how these two words wipe  us out, our joint-
ness going by in the flash of imagination.  
 
* 
 
The joint-ness going by in the flash of imagination. All the ways 
we “could have,” how these two words wipe yours mid-stride. I 
ponder all our shared separate plates  of food; my fries taken by 
you, connecting— our spoken  language. Would we still: yours is 
mine and mine is yours?  It pours from my mouth, the tongue of 
Taylor Glacier. We, too,  embody redness; levels of iron(III) 
oxide-tainted saltwater  flowing, as they tend to do, like the 
Blood Falls in Antartica; the high, first on your face, streaming 
down to your gentle hands,  as there is no tableau of me seeing 
you, eyes zooming in.  A bar— but no, it couldn’t have happened 
this way.  Or New York, the cobblestone streets of Italy, or even 
any other way than we did— on a subway in the streets— 
 
I imagine we met in another way, i.e., any other way. 

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