A WEB, A TREE by Eileen Tomarchio

Up close, they were groves, nebulae, Medusa’s head of snakes. Two ragged thatches, one on each of my mother’s outer thighs, a Rorschach pair. Seen in full only when I lifted her covers as she snored and lay beside her. By day, she had her ways of hiding them, fooling the eye. Let-out hems lengthened with ribbon, ricrac, lace. Concealer sticks and opaque hose in rainbows of flesh tones. Napkins over-draped on her lap at barbeques. Napkins that slid off after too many daiquiris like a magician’s reveal, my mother’s cue to rise by an invisible thread and tango with the breezes before my father dragged us home. As long as she slept, I could touch her at will. The thatches felt nubby, like the silk pillows she monogrammed for horse-farm wives. No name I could connect by penciled line to the hairless figures on my worksheets. Remnants, I guessed, from when humans still needed their appendix to digest apple seeds, their coccyx to keep from always falling to earth. They made me think of strange women in my dreams—ancient grandmothers, aunts and great-aunts who terrorized with hugs. They made me think of curses and bruises. I crayoned marks on my dolls’ legs and my own, certain I could draw out whatever buried shame my mother carried around and make it mine.

#

By my teens, they were everywhere. The backs of knees at checkouts, the flanks of ladies in visors at craft fairs. The noses and arches of my mother’s boyfriends who kept me company while she sewed sober enough at night to grow my college fund. Those days, she wore cut-offs and got tans and pined for old modesties. We’d knit legs on the couch and she’d trace them, my veinlets—scattered and ready to forest. In truth, I wanted a tally. I wanted to ask When? Since I couldn’t, I knocked her hand away, told her to keep it the fuck to herself. After the fourth in a six-pack, she was spouting, slurring: Never wait tables. Never cross your legs. Don’t sleep with your mouth open or they’ll crawl inside. Sometimes I volunteered to deliver Mom’s sewing jobs to the horse farm wives. Those women who never wore Sheer Elegance or knee-length anything or invited me inside as they wrote their checks against the posts of their porticos. At night, I dreamt of spiders spinning, seeding babies under my skin.

#

Years later, still single, I got tired of my concessions. The swim-skirts and sarongs packed for company retreats to beachfronts. A closet of midis, maxis, peasant frumpery from Dress Barn trying to pass as Free People. The procedure was out-of-pocket, a shallow priority of my pale-skinned cause. It was painless, surprisingly. Little needle pricks at splinter-depth. I imagined it as more a severing than a rooting out, soundless and slow-motioned as a felling before ground is struck. What I was left with seemed less like vanity than… what? Shamelessness? Whether one or the other, I didn’t know what to do with it, not at all. Will they come back? I asked the doctor. He said it’s always possible, that blood is stubborn. Sometimes in dreams, I’m with my mother in her last days when she couldn’t walk anymore, lifting her housedress to massage the pliant bark of her thighs, feeling a waft of cobwebs, the stone of her thatches’ gaze, my phantom daughter in the room somewhere, hating me.  

 

Continue Reading...

X-R-A-Y ISSUE #9

FEATURING !! Michael Seymour Blake !! Shannon McLeod !! Francine Witte !! Chris Campanioni !! Melissa Goode !! Carey Shook !! Patrick Reid !! Frankie McMillan !! Simon Henry Stein !! Caleb Echterling !! Christopher Gonzalez !! Edward Mullany !! Benjamin DeVos !! Michael Mungiello !! Zac SmithDOWNLOAD ISSUE #9 JANUARY 2019

Continue Reading...

X-R-A-Y ISSUE #8

LELAND CHEUK !! KATHERINE BEAMAN !! MARC OLMSTED !! ISABELLA ESSER-MUNERA !! ZARAH BUTCHER-MCGUNNIGLE !! DELVON MATTINGLY !! TARA ISABEL ZAMBRANO !! JAMES TADD ADCOX !! WAYLAND TRACY !! KRISTIN LAFOLLETTE !! BRAXTON YOUNTS !! JP SORTLAND !! JOEL TOMFOHR !! SHANE KOWALSKI !! MOLLY MONTGOMERY !! NIKOLAS SLACKMAN !! GREGG WILLIARD !! rob mclennanDOWNLOAD ISSUE #8 DECEMBER 2018

Continue Reading...

X-R-A-Y ISSUE #6

DOWNLOAD ISSUE #6 AUGUST 2018zachary kennedy-lopez // benjamin niespodziany // jonathan cardew // troy james weaver // bob raymonda // anastasia jill // nayt rundquist // kevin sampsell // joseph grantham // paul curran // marston hefner // s.f. wright // sam phillips // dylan gray // bud smith

Continue Reading...

X-R-A-Y ISSUE #5

DOWNLOAD ISSUE #5 JULY 2018simon graham // jim ruland // jonah solheim // shane jesse christmass // jason teal // jon berger // avee chaudhuri // alistair mccartney // elytron frass // marc olmsted // vanessa norton // jeff phillips // andrew miller // stephen mortland

Continue Reading...

X-R-A-Y ISSUE #4

DOWNLOAD ISSUE #4 JUNE 2018rebekah morgan // gene morgan // drew buxton // dave k // christina antonovskaya // toom bucksaw // eîlot tuerie // tobias carroll // megan boyle // rebecca gransden // hannah stevens // gregg williard // daniel handelman // bram riddlebarger // chris dankland // jennifer greidus

Continue Reading...

X-R-A-Y ISSUE #3

DOWNLOAD ISSUE #3 MAY 2018marisha gene hicks // lanny durbin // juliet escoria // scott mcclanahan // derick dupre // kelby losack // ted prokash // nathaniel duggan // sam pink // benjamin scott // claire hopple // jennifer greidus // chris dankland

Continue Reading...