Beauty is the Purview of Dead Women

By Jade Wallace

In Memoriam

​She fashioned herself like a flower,
delicate and pink as a spring carnation,          strength came like a shock
                              wearing a halo of charm.                               a trick of the light
People commemorate her for
                              her beauty—                                       no one distinguishes
her brilliance.
Even in photos, they cannot
               take their eyes off of her.        they forget the years spent with one wan eye
                                                       open longer than the sun, drinking so much gin that
                                             it worried the men and her mother, riding horses, driving
                                               streetcars, though she didn’t know how—these are not
                                             reveries we read of her to fill our sullen nights, but to
                                              Remember.     remind us that time
                                                                          makes all moons
                                                                                new again

---

Coriander

By Jade Wallace

This panic smells like
coriander, looks as small as
an apple seed that has
fallen, out of place, on the
bed linens. The germ turns
first translucent, then to a
cloud of sunlit motes. What
began as tangibly as a bug
becomes, in time, a bugbear
that still stings the skin at
night. Bloodsuckers do not
die, they only ascend to
metaphor. We keep a lamp
burning and wait for the
second coming, the third.
Eternal return of the same
is an obvious truth for those
with no upward mobility,
though the unacquainted
​call it tactile delusion.

---

Milk and Water

By Jade Wallace

I was four when I first cavorted with a madeleine.
Afterward, I hoarded even amandine things like
seashells on the beach. At six I had my first
religieuse experience. Sacred and sweet became
synonymous virtues. I would have gladly drowned
 
in a puits d’amour. At ten, I ascended the
golden stairs of croquembouche. At eleven,
I said my prayers to St. Honoré and learned to
turn angel wings white with confectioner’s sugar.
At twenty, I stood in a dim and empty store and saw
 
the world I would create. Soon, granite counters grew
mountainous, the oven seethed volcanic, the refrigerator
stretched like tundra. Gâteaux progrès multiplied under
glass covers. Outside, the eaves were hung with
gingerbread and wrought iron chairs waited for
 
hungry customers. For twelve years since, crowds
have flocked to my pâtisserie to taste crumbs that fall
from heaven. They bite into their petits pains glacés,
the juice of plump cranberries beading on their lips
like blood. Overhead, clouds as fluffy as French
 
buttercream drift past. I remember a past in which
I lapped up bliss the way they do. Intolerant now,
I roll out roads of burnished brioche that cannot
lead me to paradise. The kitchen is baking hot
​and milk tea burns like brimstone in my gut.

---

Jade Wallace's poetry, fiction, and essays have been published or are forthcoming internationally, including in Room, Vallum, Canthius, PRISM International, and The Stockholm Review. Their most recent chapbook is the collaborative Test Centre (ZED Press 2019) under the moniker MA|DE. <jadewallace.ca> <ma-de.ca>