{"id":12118,"date":"2015-07-31T12:02:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-31T18:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=12118"},"modified":"2015-08-02T10:32:40","modified_gmt":"2015-08-02T16:32:40","slug":"broken-sonnet-bess-houdini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/12118","title":{"rendered":"Broken Sonnet: Bess Houdini"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The water leaves five sudsy limbs after it&#8217;s drained from the bath,<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff\">_____________________________________________________<\/span>a translucent starfish.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve lost count of your disappearances: into a swarm of bees on<br \/>\nstage, in a bang of smoke, as if your body were only air &amp; wish.<br \/>\nI know it is only illusion: a mechanism behind each. A trap<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff\">__________________________________________________<\/span>door. A reason<\/p>\n<p>we will not have a child, my reflection tells the empty<br \/>\nrooms in the house. I hurry, unrecognized, to the bridge where you perch,<br \/>\na distant moon on the north wind. They walk through me.<\/p>\n<p>We have only our dreams, you tell the crowd. Swaddled in chains,<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff\">_________________________________________________________<\/span>you lurch<br \/>\nto the edge &amp; step off. We hold our breath<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff\">_____________________________________<\/span>as you plummet through the air.<br \/>\nChainless, it is I who am helpless. Who descends. Who speaks with the drowned,<\/p>\n<p>who sees the city lights from beneath the water, a pearl in the hair<br \/>\nof heaven. Desire speaks back into lungs it breathes from&#8211;<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff\">__________________________________________________<\/span>&amp; mine is gowned<\/p>\n<p>by voices from the deep. By the absent. They say you are beyond fear.<br \/>\nAs I am beyond dreams. Again I watch a burial, a drowning. A vanishing.<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff\">________________________________________________________<\/span>Again I disappear.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/12077\"><\/p>\n<h6>Mark Wagenaar<\/h6>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The water leaves five sudsy limbs after it&#8217;s drained from the bath, _____________________________________________________a translucent starfish. I&#8217;ve lost count of your disappearances: into a swarm of bees on stage, in a bang of smoke, as if your body were only air &amp; wish. I know it is only illusion: a mechanism behind each. A trap __________________________________________________door. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":354,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[44],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-39s","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12118"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12118"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12395,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12118\/revisions\/12395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}