Cardiomythology
by Virginia M. Mohlere
How many years lost at sea, a blood-dark sea, in a coracle made of bone — threading the narrow current between desire's whirlpool and duty’s rock. Something always sings the heart off course: heart of the southern hemisphere, navigating by constellation. But voyages to the ghost world never generate souvenirs — things are only left there, splinters, scraps of skin. (Hell is a country of lost possessions.) The heart cast off its lines after years hiding in a cow-shaped box, waiting for a bull-skinned god, waiting to transform, flower to grain, into a reflecting pool, an amber-dripped tree, a flight of arrows. Or suddenly setting hounds to the object of lust and playing wetly in the shreds. It is a heart constructed by a lonely doll-maker, cobbled together with stitches and tape, parts knocked off like the moon, formed and reformed. As a bone knit after fracture is stronger, this heart is more elastic, powerful, but it simply ticks off time — worn out by tumult, ruddering from star to star. Hoping to wash up finally on a quiet grey shore.
Virginia Mohlere was born on one solstice, and her sister was born on the other. Her chronic writing disorder stems from early childhood. She is an assistant editor of Scheherezade's Bequest. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Cabinet des Fées, Chiaroscuro, Mythic Delirium, Strange Horizons, and Mad Scientist Journal, among others. She can usually be found with ink stains on her fingers and tea stains on her shirt.
When asked what she is currently reading, Mohlere replied, "I'm currently reading Hide Me Among the Graves by Tim Powers. Pre-Raphaelites + vampires = WHEEE!"
Back to Table of Contents