‘Didn’t you just ask for scrambled eggs?’ I stared at the pan that was already hot over the stovetop- the yolks forming a filmy crust at the bottom. My sister in law, Laura, sat upright and rigged across the room, digging her nails into the armrest of a worn leather couch. A monosyllabic ‘no’ was the only acknowledgment I received from her- I could’ve sworn she’d asked for them. This sort of quiet enveloped us for a moment- neither of us had anything pertinent to say- it had been like that since my husband died.

I’m starting to think I’m losing my marbles- I hadn’t told anyone, but I’d started to hear a voice. Ever since Paul passed, I’d had the tiniest inkling that he wasn’t really gone. If it makes me sound insane- if no one believes me, well, then so be it. I know what I heard- someone asked for scrambled eggs, and if it wasn’t my sister, I guess it must’ve been him. I began to wonder if spirits could get hungry before realizing the absurdities of my thought process.

My husband did not ask for eggs- I repeated this phrase in my head until it began to solidify- ghosts do not make requests, especially not to ask for a plate of scrambled eggs of all things. As I muttered under my breath, Laura turned to face me. She looked like nothing more than a silhouette- this grayish-blue version of a person. All color had faded from her skin and eyes. The only thing that remained was the lithe figure that made her look inches away from collapsing. ‘I’m going home- will you be okay by yourself?’ she asked. ‘I’ll be fine’ I said, but the truth was I was the furthest thing from it. My head was pounding with this cacophony of noise- static in my brain in between utterances of words I couldn’t distinguish. I definitely heard something, although no sound reverberated through my ears. We exchanged lukewarm goodbyes and as she left I could tell it was only getting louder- the words more cohesive and fully formed.

His voice- the cadence- it was gruff yet soft- he spoke to me in that sweet tone as if molasses were dripping off his tongue. ‘These eggs seem very well done,’ he said to me, chuckling, this apparition without a body. I turned to my frying pan- I had not thought to plate them, so the once yellowy scramble had blackened and burnt to a crisp. I stared into the nothingness- wondering where he was- in here or in my head. I clung onto his voice, his roaring laughs that shook his soft belly and ruddied his cheeks- I wanted desperately to hold him one last time- to say I’m sorry for all of the stupid shit I’d said to him, riding hopelessly on the notion that we could start all over- that he could be here- really here.

I’d regretted everything about that night since it happened. We were arguing over something stupid and innocuous- dishes, I think, something that didn’t actually matter, but it was a more subliminal conversation-. ‘These dishes have soap scum all over them’ really meant ‘I can’t remember the last time I was happy in this marriage…’ and so it goes when you’re a real adult and life is hard. You’re in your twenties and desperately infatuated- romanticizing your partner, and then boom- a piano of debt, time, and age fall upon the unsuspecting couple. Suddenly you’re forty and wondering which trash can you tossed all of that passion into.

I told him I didn’t love him anymore. He sat there stony eyed and with this blank look- his face suggested a sort of untapped numb despair that reverberated throughout his body and caused his leg to pulsate with subtle anxiety. I really don’t know where that came from- it wasn’t right, but I was sleep-deprived and sad and didn’t know where to direct my austerity. But to say that I didn’t love him anymore- not even a little was a lie. I didn’t know that as he walked out the door, saying he needed to go for a drive to clear his mind that it’d be the last time I saw him like that- the last time I saw him at all.

They told me it was a semi-truck; the driver had been on the road for fourteen hours without rest and fell asleep behind the wheel. He was driving our beat up 2004 Corolla- they say he didn’t stand a chance. I remember watching dishes pile up for weeks, soap scum and all. I wore all of his old unwashed shirts from the laundry bin, refusing to wash them, so they didn’t lose his musk that smelt of a warm summer’s day- citronella candles, freshly cut grass, and the air after thunderstorms. I refused to sleep on his side of the bed or clean the sheets, for that matter. There was still a soft indentation of his figure on the mattress that I couldn’t bear to get rid of. I needed every little reminder of him that I could allow myself to have.

That’s when I started to hear the voice-first it was vague- a subdued static from AM radio that I couldn’t make out. Gradually, words became more punctuated, lurid even- I started to hear words in color; they were so loud. I still couldn’t make out sentences, but certain phrases would reach out to grab me and stick to me like glue. There was no way in particular that I could know that this was Paul, but I knew somehow that it was- a wife’s intuition if that’s a thing.

And so here was this pan of dried out black eggs sitting in front of me. I went to chisel the thing out and throw it away before my head once again began to buzz ‘don’t-’ he said. ‘I asked for scrambled eggs.’ ‘I know,’ I responded into the arid and still room- ‘but these eggs are overcooked, let me make you some new ones.’ I was glad no one else was in here because, boy, did I feel crazy. ‘You made these- they’re not overcooked, they’re perfectly fine.’

‘They’re burnt. I’m not giving you burnt eggs, Paul.’

‘Just because something is burnt doesn’t mean it’s bad.’

‘That’s exactly what it means if something is burnt, you have to throw it away. It’s no good.’

‘Take another look; these eggs are perfectly fine.’

As I looked down into my cast iron, I watched as the opaque charcoal-tinted eggs returned to a bright golden hue- perfectly scrambled.

I smiled knowingly and went to sit down with the plate of eggs I’d made. As I sat down, I pushed the plate over a bit, ‘Do you want these now?’ I said to him. ‘No, you enjoy them for me.’ I began to shovel forkfuls of egg into my mouth when my sister walked back in.

‘There was a bunch of mail outside for you.’ she said, looking at me with a queer gaze. ‘That’s disgusting,’ she followed; ‘why are you eating burnt eggs?’ ‘They’re not…’ I looked down at the meal I’d made- the eggs were once again dry and charred, flavorless and chalky in my mouth. I spit them out. Once you burn eggs, you can’t fix them.

Salome Sowa, copyright 2021

I am running on the black top

with flip flops.

I am no longer a child,

but I’m still running.

I am playing with flame on an a gas stovetop,

irreverently mocking the devout!

I’m a sharp girl-

I’m built like a knife…

but I haven’t cut into the bone yet.

I am a river monster!

Seraphic solider- siren symphonic

serenity.

sapphire ceilings- I see the silhouette of your sadness.

I am the Lord- the word- the contours of the daily bread-

I am the way the light bends on the shore of my supposed sister’s back.

my conscious ephemera

of reluctant fatigue-

this chemical collective-

I notice my tongue trace the roof of my mouth just to make sure I still have it.

absent throat.. I vomit pomegranates,

and think about feeding them to you one by one.

I made my jawbone into silverware

so that you may better consume me

I have never lied about how I felt.

do you remember your little bites-

the laced marks of mouth wrapped around my thighs-

i remember the strike of your bite-

you looked like an animal.

you reminded me of my father were he not kind and were he nothing like himself.

do you remember when the flood came-

and made itself a home in mother’s basement?

the petite fissures in the floorboard gave way to all that water.

and the petulant roaches,

I crush methodically between my toes.

I am celibate-

a next to nothing Georgia peach-

but when I felt your thrust inside me,

it brought me close enough

to God.

I felt the breeze on my breasts-

and began to claw at my encapsulated sternum,

at all my adulterous womanhood.

do you remember the water in Jasper?

the way the blackberry bramble poked at our exposed shins?

and the way you drank me

like syrup on hotcakes baking on windowsill of the chapel

in July.

time to pick my skin to make room for the new flesh,

and remember not to worship false idols,

the lovers who fear the power of my liberation.

Salome Sowa, copyright 2023

I think my Mother birthed me wrong.

I was born with my cord around my neck for starters. I used to imagine I wanted to die before I saw life’s light. There was something romantic in the allure; the mystique of going about the process of fetal development and then calling it quits before things got too hard.

Father was dying. I suppose I wanted to catch up to his arrival to God. I wanted to buy more time with the man I would hardly come to know.

Suddenly, I was here; a tadpole; like the rest.

I would cover my father with a field of flowers before I was five.

I tried to swim across the Atlantic to get away from my Mother; I ran deep into the woods and scraped my newborn knees on all the thistle and weed. I thought she wanted to kill me. Everything was going to kill me if I didn’t get the job done right myself.

Daddy and Mommy are users. Daddy and Mommy have their uses. Daddy’s was to die; and so it goes.

I sat out in the sun, waiting to effortlessly self-immolate on the woodchips of the recess block. I cried when it didn’t happen and the teachers told me to get up.

I guess I’ll play four-square with the other kids and that’ll feel just as okay.

God hangs up the Fisher Price phone; dial tone. It’s not my time to ask.

Every time my bruises bled I broke them. I liked to pick. It felt good to dig for my soul.

To see the contents of the holy spirit; to gut God; dissect Him like a frog and put him back together.

‘what’s underneath my skin?’ I pick incessantly until I get to my favorite part; the spill of radiant burgundy blood out of the smallish abrasions; I tell myself I’m doing a good job.

Nobody knows the insides of the Lord. I wonder what color angel blood is; I wonder if it is like mine. Do winged things have blood? I do, but I am wingless and too unspecial-ly tethered to the ground.

In daydream my lost boyhood, I recall that womanhood is a pain that never goes away.

-Salome Sowa, copyright 2023