Ellen Rachlin’s Anthropology unfolds across 10 fragmented vignettes—stone-skinned rituals, limonite-eyed visions, and temple steles—weaving a tapestry of myth, pain, and impermanence. Discover the full prose sequence.
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Anthropology
Bred in rock, soundless like the urge to take spirits, stoneface skinned, shine stripped, a woman’s ritual: to rest her weight on one leg then the other.
Painter
Limonite eyes of a manchild, a chimerism, song without spelling, and prayer. Now you must guess most everything else about me.
Stele
Occupying temples is not enough. Elevate the man in a tablet that withstands sandstorms. Leave out plumbing, schools, stoves, reed mats, but brag about turning captives into slaves.
Song
Someone soon will be insignificant, but now they are served all the rhymes— largeness squeezed onto notehead. The squeezing is the only way everyone will buy this.
Tall One
I steal your dreams and run as far away with them as I can while never leaving your side. I need you to believe. How else could I grasp you by the throat? I am a dragon, morphine, a knife.
Rumor
Blueberry lattice pie laced with lemon— a blister forms in the mouth while the sweetness runs along the perimeter. And they say there is no such thing as magic.
Newsprint
See “The Tall One” replace “dream” with hallucination. What’s unwritten can’t be forgotten.
Novel
In this version, you served a chilled martini that flew into your palm while you thought of a rowboat with rusted oars and what had been your second kiss. His hair is grey now and mood seems unsure. He leans towards the door.
Dance
Princesses, paupers, finger pointing, bridges crossed but not everyone crosses. Even if forgiveness in the air, people die. The Queen’s hands encircle one another; she always seems to be the last to know.
Taste
One sentence fragment at a time; cumin, cinnamon, paprika, nutmeg, cardamon, sumac, peppercorn, aniseed myrtle; the spices unfurling migration and ending in plastic wrap.
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Ellen Rachlin is the author of five collections of poetry. At the Big Bang Resort is forthcoming from Red Hen Press (Spring 2027). Permeable Divide, received the 2018 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Silver Award. Her novel, Enheduanna’s Song From the Sands, is forthcoming from Histria Books. She serves on the Board of the Poetry Society of America.