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| Linda Rodriguez |
Linda Rodriguez is the author of three novels and two books of poetry. Her first novel, "Every Last Secret," won the Malice Domestic Competition. Her second novel, "Every Broken Trust," was a Las Comadres National Latino Book Club selection. Linda's latest novel, "Every Hidden Fear," will be published by St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne Books on May 5, 2014. Linda is president of the Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, the genre of her novels.
Heart's Migration (2010 Thorpe Menn Award for Literary Excellence) and Skin Hunger are Linda's books of poetry. She is a recipient of the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award and the Midwest Voices and Visions Award.
Self-Portrait as Orpheus and Eurydice
by
Linda Rodriguez
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| Image provided by Linda Rodriguez |
Knowing his music was empty without her,
he had to dive into those dark waters
from which none returned except as flotsam,
crustacean-nibbled and bloated with the gases of decay.
How long he hesitated, songless but safe,
on the bank. She watched him decide
through the eternal minutes of her dreading
that he could decide
to abandon the notes shimmering in the air
around his head, ignore that nimbus of power
from beauty, and walk mute
through an ordinary life. She waited in fear
until he threw himself into the waves and sank
without struggle.
Almost out, he could feel her behind him
like an insistent melody pushing through his fingers
to reach the strings. He was so full of the moment,
his greatest song, bringing her back.
Such power—who knew what he could do?
He wanted to see the wonder in her eyes,
needed the perfect last note,
pure and silvery and light as bone,
the end of sound.
Published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)
