Vertical Answers
At the 2013 Retreat closing ceremony, Bhanu Kapil, writer of paradigm-shattering poetry and prose (and 2013 Retreat Small Group Facilitator; Mind Stretch and Desert Delight Contributor) shared her immense talent for creative alchemy by compiling, over the course of the week, words from the approximately 100 women in attendance. What resulted was “Vertical Answers,” a poem whose generative and synergistic energy clearly...
“Bus Ride to the City,” by Marsha Mathews
Afghanistan, 2013 Father’s beard twitches whenever my older sister, Mezhgan, comes into the room. His eyes glaze the way they do when they fall on a flower in the snow. I have tried and tried to elicit that same response. I have trimmed my dark brows like Mezhgan’s, I walk slow and purposefully like Mezghan. I have a bright purple banqa like Mezghan. Last summer, I learned to make minced lamb like Mezhgan, and pistachio dessert, too,...
“Eye See You,” by Toni Martin
That girl broke down. Back humped up like a kitten, breaths jerky, crouched in the leatherette chair. “You okay?” I say. Loud, to carry over her inward grieving. Head flips up. Scared her. Black hair curtain parts. Looks all around, for someone else. I been here so long, never speak. A big brown statue. Other chairs in the waiting room empty. “You okay?” Yeah, me, I tell her eyes. Black as the hair. She don’t talk. Maybe don’t...
“Under Water,” by Holly Sneeringer
The morning after the lady next door dies in the middle of the night, I go inside my house to tell my mother. “Ronnie is dead,” I say to an empty foyer. I return to the front sidewalk where I had been standing, already warm on my summer bare feet. There is a stillness that I have never, ever felt before as I watch the silent blinking lights of the ambulance parked along the curb. Ronnie’s front door is pushed open by a firefighter...
“Shellacked,” by Jenifer Browne Lawrence
If I step from slick refinished hardwood to concrete draw the door’s body to its jamb with a click, down to the grit where in darkness rows of Camaros Celicas Impalas drowse like horses at the foot of the drooping bougainvillea if I cross the blacktop like a pasture in which no tuft of grass remains unchewed where the potholes are tamped gopher mounds and the scent of ginger rises from planting beds delicate barb driving me into the...
This month’s edition of WAVES is dedicated to our creative sisters whose spirits burn for their art while they are in the fight of their lives.
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How is artistic expansion the antidote to our worldly challenges?
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We meet each other in waves of light, waves of vision, waves of sound–a studio beyond boundaries.
Creative sisters, shoulder to shoulder, shore to shore.
This time, there is no setting our art aside. This time, there is no setting our art asunder. This is our time.
December 6-7 | oneness | noon to noon EST | dip in and out throughout this twenty-four hour wave
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the antidote Oct 31, 2025
