Rozalija Grace
Poetry, Bruises
—for Elizabeth Rose Shaffer
When you put your lips to my shoulder,
draw the flesh up
between your teeth, I forget
my name, remember the narration
of Ibn Malik that the Prophet ļ·ŗ
was cupped thrice at the sides
of the neck and the shoulder, the gloss
of Ibn Rashid that he himself
had been cupped so rigorously
following the hadith as to lose
his memory and had to be taught
al-Fatihah by others
as he prayed.
I told you, once,
what I was once told:
that the student is blessed to forget
—graced to learn a surah
a second time. When I took
this name, it came up
from within like a welling of blood
as the angel threw my voice
back against my neck—
“Recite! Recite!”—and waited
for the bruise to seal my names,
scribed in flecks of black
cumin.
God’s Apostle ļ·ŗ
prescribed that spice against everything
but death—so Aisha,
whose name meant “living”
and never had a dead one
to blot out. When you put
your lips to my shoulder, take
the flesh between your teeth,
I forget my name until
you say it—until I learn
again my opening surah
and place it at my beginning,
as though it were my first.
Poetry, When You Say All Relationships End in Heartbreak
—for Elizabeth Rose Shaffer
I take your face in my hands
as though to apply rouge,
wonder—again—how many
roses we have been.
J’avais le coeur brisé.
So Rosalie
Lamorlière said
of the morning after the judgement,
watching her mistress pace
in her cell. “My heart broke.”
They had been together only
two months. No one
knew why, exactly, the widow
favoured the girl—just one
of many servants employed
at the Conciergerie,
then, suddenly, the last
attendant of the Queen of France,
who gave her little gifts
en souvenir de moi
from the little the guards had left her
and who suffered no one else
to fix her hair, to help
her dress. It was October
ā
—that time when you’ve told me you still
can feel the boundary thin—
when Marie went to the scaffold.
Her last meal was a broth
Rosalie prepared
and urged upon her. The mistress
did not want to eat,
but, seeing Rosalie
weep at her refusal,
she drank two spoonfuls
then ascended the stairs.
Rosalie never married.
The first time I cooked
for you, it was a broth
I left at your apartment door
while you were confined with COVID.
You did not want it—took,
perhaps, just two spoonfuls.
When you recovered and confessed
this to me, I smiled, so happy
to see you again. When you say
all relationships end
in heartbreak, I nod gravely.
They do. Then, I smile,
straighten my apron, start
water for Madame’s tea.
Bio: Rozalija Grace is a Russian Canadian writer with roots in Alaska and Quebec. Her poetry, short stories, and essays have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and featured in Room, Rust & Moth, So to Speak, and other periodicals. Her translations of early Soviet literature have been nominated for Best Literary Translations. She currently serves as a poetry editor for Psaltery & Lyre and lives in Minneapolis with her novelist fiancée, arguing over which of them is the better writer. (It’s her fiancée.) You can read more at her website and on her Bluesky @rozalijagrace.com.