— Carolina Outcrop

“Dark and Fair” by Tadeusz Styka (ca. 1908) Marthe Barnède, nicknamed Madame Sappho, is ‘a stunning brunette, with hair the color of deep shadow,’ while Colette, her young and frail lover, is described as ‘a pretty girl with lily-white skin and light blonde hair that crowned her pale ivory forehead with a riotous golden halo. (source).

The Pittsburgh Press, Pennsylvania, January 14, 1935

Wara! 2023 - oil on canvas — Krzysztof Powałka (Polish, b.1985)

https://www.instagram.com/k.powalka_oilpaintings

The Queen

by Pablo Neruda tr. Donald D. Walsh

I have named you queen. There are taller than you, taller. There are purer than you, purer. There are lovelier than you, lovelier.

But you are the queen.

When you go through the streets No one recognizes you. No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks At the carpet of red gold That you tread as you pass, The nonexistent carpet.

And when you appear All the rivers sound In my body, bells Shake the sky, And a hymn fills the world.

Only you and I, Only you and I, my love, Listen to it.

Liberty and Fifth, Pittsburgh, ca. 1940

What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade

by Brad Aaron Modlin

Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,

how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took questions on how not to feel lost in the dark

After lunch she distributed worksheets that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s

voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—

something important—and how to believe the house you wake in is your home. This prompted

Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,

and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts are all you hear; also, that you have enough.

The English lesson was that I am is a complete sentence.

And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,

and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking for whatever it was you lost, and one person

add up to something.

-filmythings