Ephphetha, that is, Be Opened
Then he looked up to heaven and groaned —Mark 7:34
I. At the solitude of pinewood rooms at the silence of photographs the internal motions pause and quiver. Words slide through sockets, squeeze through cracks between hinges press through the sieves of screens. Letters burn like Autumn leaves smoking out September. II. Letters pile on my desk. Questions like persistent children. I don’t know how to say— Words stack, bound and numbered beside my bed, collect in the metal box downstairs, siphon through apartment walls. On the radio I hear bubblegum and sex. My disobedient lips keep singing. III. At the silence of a darkened chapel at the rustle of the priest’s cassock my eyelids flutter and focus. Here words are empty boxes, dioramas from second grade, pictures drawn before I colored in the lines. Juries listen, sequestered, to find this kind of justice.
-Shannon Berry
Shannon Berry is a graduate of Southeastern University (B.A. English-2000), Northern Michigan University (M.A. English-2003), and the University of Notre Dame (M.F.A Creative Writing (2005), M.A Theology (2005). She is currently living in Rome and teaching English as a foreign language.
