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Cathy Allman

NOT FOUND IN OBITUARIES, EULOGIES, FAIRY TALES
OR THE BOOK I HAVEN’T WRITTEN

Relief of a God in White and Gold Marbled Stone by Thomas Nordwest

I keep trying to capture the why of “me” in my stabs at poems and stories. I’ve had résumés, photos, children, a home, a dog, a routine, all kinds of witnessable expressions of this aging being who continues to subsist within this body who answers to my name.

I keep trying to capture sunrises in photos, the way the clouds and sky spark a fire but only for the briefest of moments, and then the empty atmosphere between earth and space is all blue or gray or some cold color with no shade of red.

I puzzle through my own childhood, sifting memories. Do I think if I stack the episodes in just the right sequence I’ll find an answer, algorithm, some semblance of science that gives proof and therefore: truth?

Truth with a capital T is what I was told is the word, the Bible. How many times does the Bible ask, He who has eyes let him see or He who has ears let him hear? I Googled a website with fifty-six verses with some form of that question. That verse appears in both the New Testament, the Old Testament. Fifty-six quotes and still not the answer to my question.

 

About the writer:
Cathy Allman entered the writing field as a reporter after attending the School of Cinema and Television at the University of Southern California. Her poem, “Not in the Wonder Box” has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Allman’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Avalon Literary Review, Blue Earth Review, California Quarterly (CQ), Diverse Voices Quarterly, Elysian Fields, Flights, Glint Literary Journal, Hawaii Pacific Review, I-70 Review, La Presa, The Meadow, On Location, Pearl, Poydras Review, The Opiate, Origins Journal, Pennsylvania English, Peregrine, Pisgah Review, Pudding Magazine, The Round, Sanskrit, Sequestrum, Slab, Third Wednesday, Virginia Normal, and Word Riot.

Image: Relief of a God in White and Gold Marbled Stone by Thomas Nordwest (contemporary). Digital illustration created using MidJourney. 2022. By free license.

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