Shelly Holder
Shelly Holder’s first manuscript, Naming the Marrow, was recently announced as a semi-finalist for the 2024 Pamet River Prize from YesYes Books. She’s the Associate Editor for Spillway as well as the chapter lead for the San Gabriel Valley branch of Women Who Submit, an organization supporting publication of women/ women-identifying writers, especially in top tier literary journals. Her work can be found at Iron Horse Review and Ponder Review, among others, listed in full at www.shellyholder.com.
The Telling
What story doesn’t begin in a garden?
Which tale doesn’t have shadows
lurking at the edges? We all know loss
must slither through, must bite at
the aging parent or faithful companion,
the garden shapeshifting to expose
sharp rocks under topsoil, roots rotten.
We suckle at such tellings and retellings,
hungry for marrow, moral, chance
to nod or shake heavy heads, to mutter
My ex was a snake too, tossing back
our cups, grimacing like we swallowed
blood, betrayed all over again.
After, we turn
to each other, searching the lines
of worn-down faces for what we
might shape into a garden, though
we often settle for patchy grass,
enough to lay down together.
We don’t speak of such creation
to these or any other children,
let them name for themselves the reasons
for dark woods, apples, or wolves.
Let each find the teeth needed to bite back.
And we know—always—the grief of not
passing down that garden. Only words.
And how, whichever version we tell them,
the need for knowledge will still cause
them to walk away. To keep walking.
To walk to the point where none of us
has ever found the returning path.
