MUZZLE MAGAZINE
  • Home
  • Spring 2025
  • Submissions
  • Archives
  • Blog

Bound For
by Jill Mceldowney

                                                                                                                     after Ursula Le Guin
​—lighting so angry half the lights floated        blacked, flickered, came back
 
         and I filled my bathtub with water in case of a true outage, an emergency-
emergency. Why were you
                     at the bottom of those pools that—in the dark--
beware me           of blood? I look to the water. I see
 
you clawing at your own throat,
 
strangers promising
                   “He’s in a better place.”
 
         What better—what life
after this—too late
 
for naloxone, too late for Heaven,
 
new earth. I sit here perpetually
            inventing lives more terrifying to live--
 
as if reality were not enough. I hope you never know
 
how far, how deep
my grief dragged me—the everydayness
 
of walking empty
                            grocery stores, parking lots, quiet fluorescents,
the quiet telephone.
 
I think that I am alive—once,
 
                                               you said “Lobsters,”
you said “—something with their chromosomes—”
you said  “the only thing time does for them is grow—”
 
I think that I am alive now
because you are not.
 
If there is a world in which the dead speak, let them
tell me what it’s worth—your name is so difficult to say--
 
         no one, no winged angel to raise you.
 
I hope to God you know a God who understands—how long
 
         I held my arms open for you. I hoped to hear you. I hope--
                    I loved your voice, I love
what you told me.

Jill Mceldowney is the author of the chapbook Airs Above Ground (Finishing Line Press). She is a founder and editor of Madhouse Press. Her previously published work can be found in journals such as Prairie Schooner, Vinyl, Fugue, and other notable publications.
ISSN 2157-8079
  • Home
  • Spring 2025
  • Submissions
  • Archives
  • Blog