SHANA ROSS

Make a corpse a tray and you can carry it anywhere

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2024: VOL. 39.

Shabbat 43b

If you slip 
a bowl beneath 
a hen to catch 
an egg as it slips 
out, the bowl will refuse 
to be a loophole 
going forward.  It holds 
the egg, protects it 
from being 
used or moved, and now 
the bowl is basically an egg 
until sundown, when time
returns to be counted.  You 
can shatter the identity 
of a bowl, just so.  
And what if you fill 
it with sparks instead? 
Catch what falls 
in the making 
of light, the burning 
debris that might singe 
a tablecloth spread 
for joy, a practicality. 
If ash dissolves and does not 
accumulate, be assured
this is different, entirely, 
from the case of the egg.

Shana Ross is a recent transplant to Edmonton, Alberta and Treaty Six Territory. Qui transtulit sustinet. Her work has recently appeared in Cutbank Literary Journal, Ilanot Review, Gigantic Sequins, Identity Theory, Meetinghouse Magazine, and more. She is the winner of the 2022 Anne C. Barnhill prize and the 2021 Bacopa Literary Review Poetry competition. She’s been feeding the magpies in her backyard for about a year, but friendship apparently takes more time, more peanuts.