Fissured Tongue Series
Memory
by Cady Favazzo
Fissured Tongue Series Vol VI | May 2025
by Cady Favazzo
Fissured Tongue Series Vol VI | May 2025
"The New Gods (diptych)" by J G Orudjev. Mixed media collage, 4 x 5 inches, 2023
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Memory
Here is the tree I named April when the month
was June when my dad was gone, inside, door locked,
and my spoon was filled with peanut butter. Just call it
playing, I call my sister and see if she can picture
the traffic on the road so close to that green space
where we sat together, waiting for the day to end.
My sister says We slept outside and is glad
I don’t remember. Here is the wind chime with iridescent
tubes and scratch-cheeked cherubs, tucked
in a paper bag on the floor of the car. Magic enough
to lock me in there, yanking handles, mounting
heat, handprints on the glass. I see them looking
for me, barefoot down the driveway,
but I’m small. My yelling is quiet.
was June when my dad was gone, inside, door locked,
and my spoon was filled with peanut butter. Just call it
playing, I call my sister and see if she can picture
the traffic on the road so close to that green space
where we sat together, waiting for the day to end.
My sister says We slept outside and is glad
I don’t remember. Here is the wind chime with iridescent
tubes and scratch-cheeked cherubs, tucked
in a paper bag on the floor of the car. Magic enough
to lock me in there, yanking handles, mounting
heat, handprints on the glass. I see them looking
for me, barefoot down the driveway,
but I’m small. My yelling is quiet.
***
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About the Author
Cady Favazzo is a poet and teacher from Wyoming. She earned her MFA from the University of Idaho. You can find some of her recent work in Gigantic Sequins, Ninth Letter, Phoebe, and elsewhere. *About the Work
This poem is called "Memory" but mine isn't always very good. The windchime, the tree, the quality of light. Those are the things I'm sure of. *About the Process
I wrote the first draft of this poem in one fast sitting after thinking about a specific chunk of my childhood. Many of the moments are discrete, separated by time and distance, so when I finally tuned back into the poem, I paid attention to sound in an attempt to find some continuity of feeling and meaning. I’m always thinking about the balance between telling my story, protecting the people I love or have loved, and working with the limitations of any single iteration of the truth. |
About the Artist
J G Orudjev (she/her) is a mixed media artist, collagist, and sculptor living and working outside of Washington DC. Her work explores the nature of memory, transformative and transitory states, and the act and language of making meaning. "Collage is uniquely suited to this path because it is fundamentally reflective of the ways we construct narrative from association — the strata of image and context that provide the basis for both our private archetypes, and our shared visual language." J G’s work has appeared in print both domestically and internationally, has been selected by jury to show in galleries throughout the United States, and is part of several private collections. She is a member of NOMA, a cooperative gallery, where she fulfills a roll as a member coordinator. She also works as an artistic and curatorial consultant to a regionally recognized framer and gallerist. Find her online at bio.link/jgorudjev |
