The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • The Ekphrastic Academy
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead

The Catch, by Ann Guy

4/17/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Unknown Street Artist, Cebu City (Philippines) 1971

The Catch

Low tide. Four dark fishermen wade in from off shore. Three stand at the green water edge. Cloth pants heavy with the sea and black sand surges at ankles. Fish flash silver in grass baskets. Boats, slack and splintered, anchor into silt. Two shacks on stilts, standing high over water like egrets poised for flight. An ivory reflection of twilight clouds. Long shadows. Somewhere on this canvas of brooding green, coral, and black hide my sister’s small fingerprints. Her imprints recollect the viscosity of the oil paint, how it beckoned. How it hardened into the topography of dreams. From the wall in a wintry place halfway around the world from its birthplace, it whispers of soft nights and sweet fat sausage over white rice, of salt cracking on our skin and sand crunching between our molars, of the thrumming, enveloping glow of those carrying our murmuring blood. Trace the strokes, and know that we are suspended between day and night, water and shore, leaving and coming, thirsty and slaked. Cast the net and pull in an absence. An ache. A touchstone. A heartbeat. 

Ann Guy 
​
Ann Guy: "This is a poem inspired by an oil painting that my father bought in 1971 from an unknown street artist in Cebu City, Philippines. The paint was still wet when he brought it home, and it traveled with us to the midwestern United States when we immigrated in 1975."
​

Ann Guy is a writer and recovering engineer in lockdown with her husband and two young children in Oakland, CA. She received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction in 2020 and her MA in English with Creative Writing in Fiction in 2018 from San Francisco State University, where she received a Distinguished Graduate Award from both programs. Her writing has appeared in Entropy, Motherwell, and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a memoir about identity, loss, and resilience.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    Picture
    COOKIES/PRIVACY

    This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies.

    Opt Out of Cookies
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Join us: Facebook and Bluesky
    @ekphrasticreview.



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic [email protected] 

  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • The Ekphrastic Academy
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead