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Witching Hour x Fools: Writer Ellie Zupancic


Ellie Zupancic is an interdisciplinary artist and poet. She lives in Iowa City where she studies English & creative writing and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Fools Magazine. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ghost City Review, Burning House Press, A Velvet Giant, Dream Pop Journal, and others. Find her Twitter @misszupancic.

Zupancic’s work “Wisconsin in June” previously appeared in A Velvet Giant and “My Father Keeps a Wooden Bat Under His Bed for My Childhood” will appear in the upcoming issue of Mirror Magazine.


My Father Keeps a Wooden Bat Under His Bed for My Childhood

Here is the argument: it is 
a quiet link that keeps me 
here and brings me back, no 
alarming tremor.

I ask for permission 
to exist in this 
light. Instead, there is only
all the indigo in the world,
my body gone into it.

Is the weapon 
any different from the television 
in the garage, always on, always glowing 
indigo into black, glowing 
to where it yields dark?

I have plans to lift the bedsheet,
ponder violence as a downwind.

Sidelong and still,
what have you done, leaving
that enduring thing?

I think of a wooden bat only 
in the dark, unsure which is more 
of a gesture to ending.

Wisconsin in June

My grandfather at his wedding
stood next to his bride 
and this is chronicled 
in photographs.
My grandfather died on a boat
when his son was four
and this is almost chronicled
in photographs.
In the light 

of a cyclist’s reflectors
I do absolutely nothing. 
In light of a boat accident
my father has a child. 
Things are getting better 
and better / worse and 
worse. I wore every dress

I possibly could this week.
I painted my father’s father. A man 
whom I never met. 
Was it you mom 
who woke me this morning,
and what for? 
Why, when light already comes
in through the tiny basement 
window onto me?
I’m not sure which is more
of a beckoning.

Woman stands in front of the light. The shape 
of her comes on / to me / as a shadow.
In the name of violence and loss
there will be photographs of this
or there will be none. 
At the brink of violence and loss
There will be memory
or there will be none.