The Altered Room
by Alexandra Isacson
The third eye of God shined in an indigo blue triangle between her shoulders. She hung art posters of the Louvre’s glass pyramid entry, black and white photos of Frida, and Salvatore Dali’s The Sacrament of the Last Supper. It was a mystery why a Catalonian Spaniard painted a blonde Jesus. A Virgin of Guadalupe calendar centered the room. Once after school, a priest waved burning incense and prayed in Latin, exorcising the place.
Acrylic and watercolor paint splattered the walls. Listening to ethereal music and chants, students painted and collaged cigar boxes, stitched together journals, and ripped the pages out of books, altering them. The teacher’s desk frequently fell apart, and a New Orleans voodoo doll wearing a polka dot dress slid out of a broken bottom desk drawer. The gang members on probation always duct taped her desk back together.
The Louvre, by Raphael Frey
Transparent Nets of Light
by Alexandra Isacson
1. Julia Butterflies
He planted a passionflower vine. Spiked caterpillars fed and spun themselves into silk. The Julias emerged and swirled in orange vortexes over their home. Children ran with transparent nets of light, and the butterflies disappeared.
2. The Monterey Aquarium
Moon jellies slipped translucent in luminous breath. She felt helpless when the jellies entangled themselves in their tentacles.
3. Poppies
Every spring, ecstatic poppies took over a neighbors’ property. The couple gave her seedpods for her garden. Years after the couple died, she found the seeds sealed in an envelope, still rattling.
4. Mixed Media
Colors and images flickered through her body. Hot oils rushed in her veins & cool watercolors ran down her skin. Beneath the hush of a paint wash, vintage garters snapped, diary pages ripped, brassiere lace frayed & rusted box spring wire writhed. Her words tangled liquid with satin ribbons of pointe shoes she slept in & torn life drawings, powdering into dust.
© 2010 Alexandra Isacson