{"id":8026,"date":"2019-01-22T15:06:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T22:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8026"},"modified":"2019-01-22T15:06:22","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T22:06:22","slug":"a-roses-reckoning","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8026","title":{"rendered":"A Rose\u2019s Reckoning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hilary Gan<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Today is the day someone else\u2019s Messiah rose
\nto deteriorate finally into a figure on a small wood cross in the attic
\nwaiting for a final coat of varnish.
\nHow many years before He is brought into the light?
\nHow many poor remedies prescribed by the village witch?
\nHow many broken farmers\u2019 fields sown with salt?
\n 
\nI have trudged miles, scanning the horizon looking for the salt
\nof the earth, for a solitary rose
\nbut underneath my feet the plants wither; I am a witch
\ndevoid of craft — a cackling granny given distant lodging in the attic —
\nsunspots on my face and liverspots on my hands from too many years in the wrong light —
\nmy body a boat\u2019s figurehead with deep folds the color of varnish
\n 
\nOh, and what varnish!
\nSlice me and barrel me and salt
\nme down in trust for next year\u2019s famine, tie me in a kerchief for a light
\nsnack on the road. I wear my years on my face. I am one who never rose
\nbeyond my circumstance. An average life was my house\u2019s attic.
\nDaughter of a witch,
\n 
\nNow mother to a witch —
\nYes, she is, and all that witching entails. I will not varnish
\nthe truth. Ever since that day on the attic
\nstairs I have known her soul to be a pillar of salt.
\nChildren never imagine their mothers on the receiving end of a rose —
\nYoung, and standing in a parlor filled with afternoon light —
\n 
\nBut I had thirty years before I even invented her name, ambition a fiery light
\nburning in my uncanny witch
\nheart, my hair dark as night and my cheeks a dusty rose
\nthe late flowers of fall my beauty\u2019s only varnish
\nstriving like a Roman soldier for my bag of salt
\nhowling at the stars, shouting my body\u2019s defiance into the attic
\n 
\nof heaven. Begging my Lord above to come down from His attic
\ndwelling and grant me a spark of His light — !
\nBut the saltiness has gone out of this salt.
\nAnd I am no longer even a witch
\nI am a broken table, a grey streak of wood worn of its varnish,
\na dried and pressed and colorless rose
\n 
\nfound between yellowed pages, too light for life, an inefficacious witch\u2019s
\nbrew. I go soon to His attic; and my beauty\u2019s varnish
\nnow will be the stillness of the great dead sea, the salt of purity; soon He prunes the rose.<\/p>\n

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HILARY GAN <\/strong>lives in St. Louis, MO, with her D&D-playing husband and terrifyingly curious infant daughter. After stints as an ecologist, line cook, candlemaker, package tester, and museum educator, she has settled into library work. Find more of her fiction and essays at www.hilarygan.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hilary Gan     Today is the day someone else\u2019s Messiah rose to deteriorate finally into a figure on a small wood cross in the attic waiting for a final coat of varnish. How many years before He is brought … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":8017,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8026","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-25s","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8040,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8026\/revisions\/8040"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}