loose threads

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Jo McCrory is a writer and artist living in northern California.

  • May I?

    May I?

    her shoulders supine in warm grass the sea salt air and pennyroyal their perfume mixing like the harbor meeting the ocean open-mouthed, eager, teeming with want
    her shoulders supine in warm grass
    the sea salt air and pennyroyal
    their perfume mixing like the harbor meeting the ocean
    open-mouthed, eager, teeming with want

    While nosing around the internet last week, I read about the Sarah Orne Jewett house in South Berwick, Maine. In addition to photos of her book cover designs (which sparked their own project in my mind), I was reminded that I freaking love Sarah Orne Jewett. I’ve been reading The Country of the Pointed Firs this week, and friends, my soul is drinking it up. The narrator rents an abandoned school house overlooking the town/harbor in coastal Maine for fifty cents a week and spends her days there writing undisturbed. There are pastoral landscapes and so many seafarers and a tragical love story (it seems, I’ve only just got there!)

    This excerpt is one of several drafts I’ve started inspired by the book. They’ll probably become one piece in the end but it’s nice to leave April behind and start May still feeling inspired (despite the odds).

  • Day 29: i am something you will never understand

    Day 29: i am something you will never understand

    night spends shadows on the walls red light green light yellow light cycle through car horns your breath blesses my navel spun out on stardust glitterati teeth bared straight into the face of god the fist of thunder trembles my thighs undo me undo me i’ve waited so long red light on the walls thump thump-thump at the curb idling above you i’m an angel all those demons strangling your hope darling, i can slay them with a single word if you want me to
    excerpt
    night spends shadows on the walls
    red light green light yellow light
    cycle through car horns
    your breath blesses my navel
    spun out on stardust glitterati teeth
    bared straight into the face of god
    the fist of thunder trembles my thighs
    undo me
    undo me
    i’ve waited so long
    red light on the walls
    thump thump-thump at the curb
    idling above you i’m an angel
    all those demons strangling your hope
    darling, i can slay them with a single word
    if you want me to