My Sister Morgana Humming by Valerie Fox
My pincer-footed sister, Morgana, scatters food to our chickens in the kitchen garden out on the rugged farm, it being her turn again, and it being my turn to scan the horizon for regiments, and my sister is humming a well-known song that contains a rumor about the two of us, and our terse exchanges, which it is bad enough that we must endure doing and hearing, but her joining this chorus about meeting a man on the road (in some dream journey) is just going too far, especially as all I did was suggest to her that she put out the fire in her hair, the one with antlers, so the spat doesn’t add up to much in the end, as we still have to do all our family farming by hand, and Morgana, for the hundredth time, pulls the desiccated newspaper clipping out of her apron pocket, explaining how just like the wellness mogul, Bernarr MacFadden, we could offer city hotel comfort in the midst of lush country greenery, like this farm, a place to get thin or experience positive energy, if only Uncle Teddy who has been wandering around the grounds wearing only a towel, and whose bed of nails has left no marks on his body, would give us his signature and generous go-ahead, all the while a large ham hangs like a bat from a fruit tree, quite tempting, a badge I can’t unsee, then Morgana says that thing about how I smell, then I can’t forget it, then we stay up all night drawing up our business plan, then she and I call a truce and start building a nest out of branches and rain.
Artist’s Statement
My stories tend to be voice driven. Writing poetry my whole (not so short) life, around ten years ago my poetry shifted towards prose poetry, and I have increasingly been writing short fictions and linked flash series. Much interested in collaboration, I published The Real Sky (art/word collaboration), a limited edition, hand-made book, with artist Jacklynn Niemiec. My style is the culmination of my constant practice, and doubtless influenced by those I read avidly (most consistently and recently Murakami, Baudelaire, Brecht, Murdoch, Tanizaki). I have been striving to develop an audience for my writing by publishing in the exciting flash fiction world, which I love, due to its welcoming spirit and openness to literary innovation.
Valerie Fox has published prose in Juked, Ellipsis Zine, The Café Irreal, New World Writing, Flash, Cleaver, Reflex, NFFR, Okay Donkey, Across the Margin, The Ekphrastic Review, and other journals. She's had stories selected for the "Best Small Fictions" and "Best Microfictions" series. A story she wrote was included in The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings. Her poetry books include The Rorschach Factory and Insomniatic. Originally from Pennsylvania, she has taught at many institutions, including Peirce College (Philadelphia), Sophia University (Tokyo), and, currently, at Drexel University (Philadelphia). In addition to teaching various writing courses at Drexel, she is a faculty writing fellow with Writers Room, a community arts organization.