Lucy Swan

POETRY

the -ologies of memory

“the -ologies of memory” read by Lucy Swan.

philosophers posit that the past only
exists in the mind; settled in the spongy,
gray-matter of your cerebrum, in fluid
through the narrow tubules between synapses,
budding in the engram cells of your neuronal
ensembles. but i see it as an ugly discoloration
clinging to the epidermis, a pink ghost of a
scab, action’s irreversible consequence.
experts in dermatology say that the body’s
natural healing response to damage, the
scar, is permanent; consistently there even when
hidden, resists salve and all ointment, persistent
despite all manners of prayer and bribery and
repentance. but i expect that the second-advent
Christ will peel it off, as easily as He might
peel old paint from a wall, bark from a tree, a
sticker from a banana

gospel

“gospel” read by Lucy Swan.

“when they heard this they were cut to the heart,” — Acts 2:37

the word particle like a neutron
reactant meets that isotope
sanctifier, latent spirit, catalytic
presence, and radioactive sound
thrums like enriched uranium in
your earholes,
divine current
disrupting and decaying central
nervous system, through vagus
nerve, like a scalpel that snaps
thready capillaries, bleeds out
black arteries, rends and peels
back pericardium,
cuts and then
cauterizes, searing shut with holy
fire raw muscle and open organ and
frayed nerve, jolting life into new
body that twitches with heat and
energy and stretches finger and limb
and leg toward water —

Lucy Swan is a teacher based in Southern California. Lucy has a heart for poetry and history. She believes that poetry and history in cooperation offer a fuller understanding of our particularly personal and universally immanent God. Her writing aims to reflect this synthesis. Her work appears in The Clayjar Review and Concordia’s The Aerie, where she also served as an editor.

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Image: The anatomy of the brain by Sir Charles Bell, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.