POETRYThe Alphabetical OneMonica Goldberg
Image © Amado Loureiro
A ran with the grace of intention. B ran away from the stars. C ran away from the truth but D ran towards it. Dead with exhaustion, E couldn’t move. It wasn’t that F didn't want to move— it was just that G couldn’t. Too tired to sleep, H closed his eyes. I showered and washed the scars on J's back. K ironed her shorts and chose socks to match L's mood. M grew disproportional and large. N ate two pieces of toast with herrings and waited for O to drive him to the hospital. P was shown into the cubicle and Q fell to his knees. R was injected with morphine but S cried out in pain. T collapsed onto U but V begun to sob. W argued that language was still emerging but X demanded proof. Y sunk into a depression.
Z begun to float across strange and foreign worlds. Across the digital abyss— and the words that were missing. Across the puzzle of fractured worlds and the graceful icing of lightheaded maturity. Across the frozen realities and sloping foundations. The universal dilemmas and the paradox— of sight. Across the bizarre and mysterious shape of language, and alphabetical maps.
Monica Goldberg is an Australian poet and prose writer. Her short fiction, poetry and non fiction has been published in literary journals and anthologies both in Australia and overseas. Her story "A Leap of Faith" was commended in the Joanne Burns awards and her story "Rare Expectations" was long listed in the Fish Flash Fiction awards.
