Photography © Jennifer Matthews

 

Echolalia

The many voices of a fox journeying throughout the room in waves. Meaningless repetition, the snapping chatter of almost barks. Soothing a hand over your red face to feel the high degrees soaring under the skin. The bright Coca-Cola can color radiating heat like it was left in the car on a summer day. Burning to the touch, as hot as the interior of my mom’s car during the summers we went to Jones Beach when I didn’t want to go. A petting gesture, the skin under my hand the texture of a primrose. My fingertips are always cold, and I press indents into the flush of a cheek watching the waxy white fade back to red. Anger is a heat lamp, and the words still roll off the walls. I press my chapped lips to your face and my mouth is set on fire, embers swallowed and stoked throwing warmth from your face through my body right to the freeze of my fingers. I lace my hand through the threads of your hair to silence the repetition of words.

 

Jane-Rebecca Cannarella (she/her) is a writer and editor living in Philadelphia. She is the editor of HOOT Review and Meow Meow Pow Pow Lit, and a former genre editor at Lunch Ticket. Jane-Rebecca is the author of Better Bones and Marrow, both published by Thirty West Publishing House, The Guessing Game published by BA Press, Thirst and Frost from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, A Practical Almanac for Surviving Inside the Human Body from Bottlecap Press, and Eleven-Hundred forthcoming from Really Serious Literature.

Poet/Photographer Jennifer Matthews’ poetry has been published in Nepal by Pen Himalaya and locally by the Wilderness Retreat Writers Organization, Midway Journal, The Somerville Times, Ibbetson Street Press and Boston Girl Guide. Jennifer was nominated for a poetry award by the Cambridge Arts Council for her book of Poetry Fairy Tales and Misdemeanors. Her songs have been released nationally and internationally and her photography has been used as covers for a number of Ibbetson Street Press poetry books and has been exhibited at The Middle East Restaurant, 1369 Coffeehouses, Sound Bites Restaurant in Somerville and McLean Hospital.