Hundertwasserhaus, Vienna Seated on sinuous benches, we eat sausages stuffed in sleeves of bread longer than my forearm. Above, plain brown siding concedes to concrete painted primary colors in sloppy blocks, home to disordered families of windows. The curving, kaleidoscope walls ask if we have ever seen anything so strange. Coldnoon: International Journal of Travel Writing & Travelling Cultures 3
Dear Dublin, Your sullen sky threatens to ring out soaked wool on people careening through cobbled streets, foot traffic thicker than the accent of the woman who served me lamb stew and bitter tea at the corner restaurant. Snippets of blather criss-cross each other like Ha Penny Bridges Dia Duit up the Dubs it s grand The words find a home in my ears, but get lost in my brain like Rachel and I trying to find the Leprechaun Museum. We ordered tea at an O Connell Street shop instead. Dear Dublin, I wish I knew my way around your streets. Maybe then, I d find my place in your history. The guidebook tells me River Liffey cuts the path of civil war: golden torcs torn from the Hill of Tara and whispered suggestions of ghosts congregating in Stonebreaker s Yard, cursing Kilmainham Gaol. An unspoken quiet falls on St. Stephen s Green when bells of Christ Church Cathedral chime tree, music stumbling over itself like mouths trying to recall Gaelic consonants lost to time and English vowels. My tongue only stumbles over smooth slopes of a 99 cone and amber air bubbles of Crunchies consumed under flags rooting for Boys in Blue and skies rarely more than monochrome beauty. Volume 6, Number 5 May 2018, Balsam Issue 4
Shoes on the Danube Promenade I stand between Parliament and Széchenyi Bridge, stopped along the riverside walk, gaze fixed by my feet. An army of shoes litters the edge of the stone cobbles, as if sixty people just stepped out for a dip in the frigid Danube. But these shoes are iron, rusted by weather and time; their owners will not come back never came back from their swim. They dyed the Danube red instead, the color of the wilted rose that bends over the heel of a too small boot, just steps from where I stand. Coldnoon: International Journal of Travel Writing & Travelling Cultures 5
Postcards from a Cynical Romantic I. अन त क ल (Eternity) She has a love-hate relationship with the Taj Mahal. She cannot imagine a love so perfectly formed that even the sun chooses to align itself by those pillars built from immortal dedication: Mughal emperor Shah Jahan so loved Mumtaz Mahal that he crowned her grave with marble and pietra dura. Though she wants to believe love can last past death, she questions why the sun still graces the long-dead couple with a glowing picture frame as an anniversary gift when it knows his body lies entombed beside his beloved s, though he never meant to share her bed in the afterlife. Gleaming turrets call to her, Love is not eternal. Love is proud. II. Plans She has a seasoned exasperation with the Rockefeller Rink at Christmastime, with fiancées-to-be who buy pre-planned proposals with cheesy CDs and corked champagne, Volume 6, Number 5 May 2018, Balsam Issue 6
or else don t, and wait in line for hours to share intimate moments with one hundred forty-eight strangers under fluorescent lights. She preferred skating on moonlit pond in backcountry farmland, just two under the gaze of stars she called friends. But ponds melt, and so do ice rinks. Love, she has decided, is as inconsistent as the Midwest weather. Even the 30,000 lights of Rockefeller tree cannot cause every crevice of a man s heart to glow infinitely, and affections melt like snowflakes when arguments heat to thirty-two degrees. III. Promesse She has a bone to pick with the Pont Des Arts and Locked-Up Loves, with couples who stand on edge scrawling commitment on padlocks, imprisoning love to that moment, and tossing keys into Seine s lusty lips, But throwing away the key never kept promises; in elementary school, two fingers pressed together, drawn across Kool-Aid stained lips, turned with click and flick, threw away trust when the zipper came undone, snitching secrets to playground crushes. She does not see why metal keys, titanium locks, and a new name, murmured Love, should change the pattern Coldnoon: International Journal of Travel Writing & Travelling Cultures 7
of inconsistencies. She is not surprised the bridge broke under the weight of broken hearts unable to shatter ironclad bonds chained to ghosted ex-lovers. is a graduate of Hamilton College, New York where she studied archaeology and creative writing. She lives in western Michigan. Volume 6, Number 5 May 2018, Balsam Issue 8