They Make You Hungry for the Holiness

Tell me, why does the smoke of frankincense still make such a mark? Were all those bruises made on cold wood—dents in my knees, bent and fixed down—meant to keep me kept? At funerals I think I know why I am looking at roses. You said that Davinci’s opus etched onto her casket was what she would have loved and what she would have deserved and I agreed. I think I might be the sinking when it was sinking in. I asked for grace and it snagged on its way down to me. On St. Bride’s spire. A corridor at the River Thames. I love that fog the most. Some prayers are still hovering there. They are Tower Ravens with wings pinned. Grazing blue and grey. Charcoal when smudged against violet. Maybe I’m the censer, swinging back and forth by a sanctified hand.

Stephanie Victoire is an author and creative writing mentor born in London, UK, to a Mauritian-Creole family. Stephanie has published several works of fiction in literary anthologies, including: “Spiritus Mundi” (Liminal 11 Press), “Outsiders” (Three of Cups Press) and “Flamingo Land and Other Stories” (Flight Press). She has commissioned and broadcast short works with BBC Radio and published her collection of short stories, & The Other World, It Whispers (Salt Publishing), which was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, the Saboteur Awards, and shortlisted for the DIVA Literary Awards. Stephanie currently lives in Portland, Oregon.