Virginia Woolf: Bride

The tenth of August, 1912.

Earlier that year the Titanic met her demise, 

becoming the only thing its maker promised she would not.

Did you read about it in the paper, hear it from a friend? 

Did you see the obituaries and look into the eyes of a woman named Edna 

or Joyce and did the pull of her soul tug you down down down?

Did you wear something traditional? Something white? I can’t imagine 

you like this; I will assume you wore wool trousers 

and a collared shirt. Your lips you deigned to paint a rose pink 

so close to your natural color he didn’t even notice it on you.

Did you think of them as you said Yes, Yes, Yes—their bodies 

went into the ocean and the ocean stole the lights from their eyes.

The officiate watches your lips say Yes, but 

could he see the lipstick? 

Could all those souls, frozen, bobbing, slick, dark, fit so neatly into your chest?

Did you know then you wouldn’t be able to carry them all?

- Alyssa Udall, 2014

White or Wheat? Creative Writing Sample

Creative Writing Sample

Flash Fiction / Prose Poem

White or wheat? the girl behind the counter of the sandwich shop asks me, and I get the feeling that she has had a really terrible day, so I point to myself, the picture of ignorance, and I say, I'm Irish. I watch her eyebrows draw down in confusion and then, after several painful seconds, a slow smile spreads out across her face like the tide getting ever closer to lounging sunbathers, unaware and blissfully hot, and I think I finally understand why people write poems, because that smile those eyes that girl in the green apron will be with me forever. So I order my ham and cheese lunch and she throws a chocolate chip cookie in for free with a secret in her eyes that only I understand in the context of deli meat secret terrors florescent lighting the daily grind dirty tile floors minimum wage ponytails in hairnets traffic sanitary regulations white or wheat? and I leave the shop with more than a little of that girl on my back, a loathsome, beautiful passenger.