Abyss & Apex : Third Quarter 2006

Your Move, Musée

Greg Beatty

 

 

When they opened a cupboard
at the Musée National Gustave Moreau,
closed these ninety years,
they found a version of
Diomedes Devoured by His Horses,
a savage tale of unnatural passions,
a public myth masterfully evoked,
too long left in quiet dust.

When we opened a cupboard
at the house of Kenneth Gordon Linet,
deceased, ten days,
we found a love letter from
Kenneth, my grandfather, to grandma,
a savage tale of natural passions,
a private creation story plainly told,
accidentally opened to noisome air.

Tallying the score
of mythic majesty,
silent artistry, and
love lost to time,
the count is 1-1,
with all of Grandpa’s
basement yet to sort.
Your move, Musée.

 

Greg Beatty is recently married. He and his wife live in Bellingham, Washington. Greg has a BA from University of Washington and a PhD from the University of Iowa, both in English, and attended Clarion West 2000. Greg’s work has appeared in 3SF, Absolute Magnitude, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Asimov’s, Fortean Bureau, HP Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, the Internet Review of Science Fiction, Ideomancer, Oceans of the Mind, Paradox, SCI FICTION, Shadowed Realms, Strange Horizons, Star*Line, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and, of course, Abyss & Apex. Greg won the Rhysling Award in 2005 (short poem category).

Editor’s Note: Greg’s Rhysling Award-winning poem, No Ruined Lunar City, was first published by Abyss & Apex. 

 

Copyrighted by the author unless otherwise noted.

 

Art Director: Bonnie Brunish

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