Spiral by Isabel Grey

“Here I was born and there I died.
It was only a moment for you.
You took no notice.”

• Vertigo, 1958

Novak’s French twist spiraled me to questioning the validity of here 

the contemporary whether my life truly belonged to me or was I 

braided in Hitchcock’s technicolor scene was 

each sculpture on the screen an allegory carved with meaning from before I was born 

every bench in the Palace of Legion of Honors a past life and

my behind is bobby-pinned to the traumas sieved through the polyester cushions there 

One strand of peroxide-lifted hair is plucked out as I 

let down my celluloid updo, shaking the shedding that died

and landed in a shredded pile before the portrait, is it

an offering to the ancestor I once was, 

this string of dead cells, this curl that could only 

belong to me I hold up this piece to a 

Redwood tree split open, revealing a moment, 

a vortex of dizzying coincidence rings dissected only for

the Jungian tourist, the recycled significance I used to be. I would tell you 

which of my seeds came first, which would germinate and possibly become you 

but the limbless statues, from which our likeness was made, already took 

me, already hung my portrait since I had no 

right to tell their secrets. Walk past my canvas. Hurry. Take no notice.

Isabel Grey is a Creative Writing MFA Student at Western Colorado University. Grey is an assistant poetry editor at Terrain.org. Her poem "This Act Shall Take Effect" was nominated for the 2024 Pushcart Prize. Her short story, 'Red Door Houe" won the 2023 WordCrafter Press Fiction Contest. Her upcoming work can be found in AfterPast Review, The Chamber Magainze, Black Poppy Review and elsewhere.