By Gabriella Brand
Light is the secret to just about everything. Rashid taught me that. He is the best lover I ever had, but also a good friend and a philosopher and a photographer and a genius. Gosh, have I learned things from that guy. How to make myself look beautiful just by taking a match to a couple of candles. In the mornings, he throws open the curtains and pretends to be Cat Stevens, although he only heard “Morning Has Broken” after he came to this country. He talks about daybreak back in his homeland, how it twists your heart with its beauty, how the turquoise stones glitter, how the call to prayer marks the hours, how the sun moves behind the minarets. He ran from darkness, I know that. He was never in prison, neither there nor here, but now he fears that someone will shut a window or a door. Throw him into a place without light, even though he is here legally, even though he has a green card, a blue card, a purple card, a rainbow in his pocket, even though there is a lamp in his heart.
Gabriella Brand’s fiction, poetry, and CNF have appeared in such publications as The First Line, Gyroscope Review, Hamilton Literary, The Blue Line, Citron Review and elsewhere. A Pushcart Prize nominee in both fiction and poetry, Gabriella teaches in the OLLI program at the University of Connecticut. She has read her work in such venues as Le Poisson Rouge, New York City, and on the Open Mic of the Air. More at: gabriellabrand.net
MoonPark Review 