perhappened
  • the mag
    • the issues
    • submit to the mag
  • the press
    • the chapbooks >
      • CALIFORNIA IS GOING TO HELL
      • body in motion
      • sun of daedalus / song of anticlea
    • submit to the press
  • support us
perhappened mag
issue 11: HOMECOMING

osmia avoseta

JONATHAN ROWE
There are bees in Turkey laying their eggs in beds of petals
miniature gold black Kahlos and O’Keeffes with pill

bottle eyes and a lion’s mane, solitary sculptors setting layers
pink, crimson, purple, and blue, fused together with nectar

and dirt, the kind of architects who make a structure elegant and sound.
Pity the progeny in these Joseph’s coat cradles born without sight

and the mothers they won’t meet, initiators into this little guild.
I haven’t made a work to die upon yet. Are these savants content to live

for their finished craft? Surely their sacrifice is sanctified like Gospel authors
writing revelations before their martyrdoms. Or not. Some art and artisans

never rise to icons and masters. Are they no less glorious?
Consider the weaver forging a house of grass.
​
A survival act.
There must be a masterpiece in that.

Jonathan Rowe is a writer and copyeditor raised between Boston, Massachusetts, and Johannesburg, South Africa. His work is published or forthcoming in The Curator, Boston Art Review, “Good Cop/Bad Cop: An Anthology” by FlowerSong Press, and elsewhere. You can learn more about his work at jonathanrowewrites.com or on Twitter @jwrowe93.
perhappened mag
← back    issue 11: HOMECOMING    next →
header photo: carina dimmek (unsplash)

© 2020-22 perhappened LLC
  • the mag
    • the issues
    • submit to the mag
  • the press
    • the chapbooks >
      • CALIFORNIA IS GOING TO HELL
      • body in motion
      • sun of daedalus / song of anticlea
    • submit to the press
  • support us