Two Serious Ladies

Two Serious Ladies is named for the 1943 short novel by Jane Bowles.

“I have my happiness, which I guard like a wolf, and I have authority now and a certain amount of daring, which, if you remember correctly, I never had before.”

― Jane Bowles Two Serious Ladies

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Two Poems

by Diana Arterian

INSTRUCTION

My father and I stand in front of his bathroom mirror He is shaving with his antique kit He stops, looks at me in the mirror His child He says, If anyone ever steals you away poke out the abductor's eye I can run, I say – No – take your finger and get it into his socket behind the eye then pull forward

MOTHER OF GOD

There was an ivory head of Mary mounted on my father’s wall It looked as if she was emerging She was almost as big as me Each night I lay in bed and imagined her floating through the dark house Eyeless spirit a tail of white trailing behind her

Diana Arterian

Diana Arterian was born and raised in Arizona. She currently resides in Los Angeles where she is pursuing her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. She holds an MFA in poetry from CalArts, where she was a Beutner Fellow. Diana is the Managing Editor of Ricochet, a publisher of non-tradition poetry and prose chapbooks. Her own chapbook Death Centos was published by Ugly Duckling Presse, and her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in H_NGM_N, trnsfr, and The Volta, among others.