The Storyteller by Joanna C Valente
Henry was the one to tell Maggie about a girl
named Philomela. She could only be seen
through a cigarette flame. He wouldn’t tell her
what she looked like, only that she appeared
if you were lucky. He was unable
to distinguish one face from another most times.
Maggie asked if the girl ever spoke. No.
Her tongue had been cut out by her parents
when they discovered she was holding hands
with other girls. The neighborhood men
would watch her, like she was a girl
in dirty movies.
Maggie became scared of all the houses &
all the streets, of all the bricks piled brick upon
brick upon brick.
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (forthcoming 2016, ELJ Publications) & Xenos (forthcoming 2017, Agape Editions). She received her MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. She is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine. Some of her writing has appeared in Prelude, The Atlas Review, The Huffington Post, Columbia Journal, and elsewhere. She has lead workshops at Brooklyn Poets.
–Art by Kaia Pieters
Running sports | Air Jordan 4 – Collection – Sb-roscoff
