![A photographic print of a gothic cathedral shot from an ant’s eye view. The print has several images layered, all of which are translucent. Over the cathedral is a large white cloud and in the foreground there are four pine trees, which are a dark red. The background is a dense forest canopy with spots of light trickling through the leaves.](https://i0.wp.com/festival.masspoetry.org/wp-content/uploads/Rutigliano.jpg?resize=1024%2C679&ssl=1)
Meditation on Ruin
By Krysia Wazny McClain
A man and woman hike deeper into the woods. Sun burns their lips and bleaches fog
from the faces of the ghosts. Their path to Manderley follows the rise of a crimson flood,
a tide staining the trunks of evergreens, stripping branches bare of needles. Coaxed
by the terrain, the couple consume a cascade of sound, low and
lower still, approaching a waterfall, no—an opera
pouring from Bluebeard’s mouth—Yoouu
diiiith.
Judith—final conquest. The rumble of Goliath’s
body as it hits the ground. They come to ten emptied thresholds. Inside the ruin, no shelter, no
plate of ripened fruit. They undress in the air, and she opens her flesh to fingers of
scorched stone. In the passageways, a shriek, a laugh, a banshee’s echoed cry. She will sleep here like a child, newborn. He dreams of fire.
About the Poet
Krysia Wazny McClain is a poet, organizer, and freelance editor from Somerville, Massachusetts. She is an MFA candidate at Bennington College, and her work has been published previously by Porridge magazine.
About the Artist
Thomas Rutigliano resides in Beverly, MA and is currently a candidate for a BFA in 2021 with a concentration in Photography/Video/Film at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly MA. His work is a deep visual understanding of how to navigate the winding hills and blurred lines that lay within the hearts and minds of our memories.