{"id":8074,"date":"2019-04-25T15:23:49","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T21:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8074"},"modified":"2019-04-25T15:23:49","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T21:23:49","slug":"zora-and-the-zombie","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8074","title":{"rendered":"Zora and the Zombie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Lauren Tivey<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Central Hospital, Port-au-Prince, 1937<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It lurches into the sun-bleached yard<br \/>\non dusty, cracked feet, yellow-clawed,<br \/>\ndrab linen shift over a bony frame, limbs<br \/>\nreckless, akimbo, a terrifying ragdoll,<br \/>\nblank black face with empty eyes, floating<br \/>\nnightmare head on a stick of a neck. Zora<br \/>\nviews this wreckage of a once-woman, this<br \/>\nanimated corpse pitching before her, hears<br \/>\ndreadful guttural emissions from its throat,<br \/>\nand\u2014ever the pro\u2014grasps her Kodak tighter,<br \/>\nfingerprints smearing the <em>Bakelite <\/em>case,<br \/>\nchides herself for courage in the name<br \/>\nof anthropology. The only thing to do<br \/>\nin the face of the fiend: get the shot<br \/>\nand run, practically pissing herself,<br \/>\ntoward safety. Later, in the darkroom,<br \/>\na blotch blooming in the acid bath,<br \/>\nsaturated paper floating, undulant<br \/>\nshadows. And then, black hellebore<br \/>\nface emerging, an ink smudge, devoid.<br \/>\nZora lights a cigarette; slow exhale<br \/>\nthrough the nostrils, sly smile curling<br \/>\nat the edge of her scarlet lips.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Note: Author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston traveled to Haiti to study folklore and voodoo in the 1930s; while there, she learned of the case of real-life \u201czombie,\u201d Felicia Felix Mentor, and photographed her. The photo appeared in LIFE Magazine in December, 1937.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>LAUREN TIVEY<\/strong> is a Pushcart nominated poet of three chapbooks, most recently <em>The Breakdown Atlas &amp; Other Poems<\/em>. Her work has appeared in <em>Connotation Press, The Coachella Review,<\/em> and <em>Split Lip Magazine, <\/em>among dozens of other publications in the U.S. and U.K. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Flagler College, in St. Augustine, Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lauren Tivey &nbsp; Central Hospital, Port-au-Prince, 1937 &nbsp; It lurches into the sun-bleached yard on dusty, cracked feet, yellow-clawed, drab linen shift over a bony frame, limbs reckless, akimbo, a terrifying ragdoll, blank black face with empty eyes, floating nightmare &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8074\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":8067,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8074","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-26e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8074","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=8074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8085,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8074\/revisions\/8085"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}