Self-Portrait as Unexploded Ordnance

Abstract

Self-Portrait as Unexploded Ordnance Melissa Oliveira (bio) Yes to the aerial tilt, the whistleof slipstream, the contrail crosshatchand the scatter of mistle thrush, tail feathers sparking with dew.Yes to the quick-catching thatch,to the country roads and all the rest — the sand’s soft hold, the final surpriseof my own silence. The smokeover Oranienburg bruised the orange sky, and even thenI held my tongue. I wantedto know what others knew — how to burn without killing,how frost ignites the birch,how rain can coax a coven of chanterelles to lift their yellow cupsto the soughing ash. I spent a season watchinggasoline wings pass through the willow, the strung flames only waveringa bit. So too I hushed the chargeinside, gave it no air, tried to be agreeable at any cost. Each new decadeunlaced my iron with rustwhile the hooves of the wood, [End Page 154] the roving stereoscope both took mefor any other foliate thingin any other autumn. How could I know what time corrodes,how the antennae twitch can feellike an entire rushing earth? Forgive me — the thoughtonly a flicker, and then — how softthe bracken, how gentle the arms that lift [End Page 155] Melissa Oliveira Melissa Oliveira’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares Solos, Agni, Calyx, New Ohio Review and others. Her previous work has garnered a Best American Essays Notable listing, a Best of the Net nomination and an honorable mention from Glimmer Train Stories. She is a regular book reviewer for Hippocampus Magazine, and other reviews and essays have appeared in The Kenyon Review Online, Brevity, The Rumpus, PANK Online and more. Copyright © 2021 Pleiades Press