Gather and Run
Inspired by a line in ‘Waltz for My Brother’ by poet Raluca Balasa, gather and run beautifully captures the complexities of love amid the inevitability of change, a motif of the poem itself. We were delighted to publish ‘Waltz for My Brother’ in Pulp Literature Issue 23, Summer 2019.
Raluca has kindly gifted us with another of her marvelous pieces and we are delighted to share it with you here. Originally appearing in Fire Poetry Journal Issue 5, here now is ‘Fine, Thank You’.
Fine, Thank You
by Raluca Balasa
I don’t remember what was wrong. A small thing,
childish. Coming back from midnight mass,
family in the kitchen, hors d’oeuvres spread
on the table. A day to rejoice,
but all I could do was cry.
No one noticed but him.
In the hall, he took my shoulder and asked,
Ce e? I wanted to say but didn’t know
how to admit I didn’t know what to say.
He’d bitten a nurse at the hospital.
Thought she was me, cried the night
and said he was sorry.
Now, when I remember him, I remember
not the jokes or songs or the way he’d answer
Fine, thank you! because it rhymed with the question.
I remember that Easter night in the hall
when he asked How are you?
and I answered, Not telling.
To read ‘Waltz for My Brother’, pick up your copy of Pulp Literature Issue 23, Summer 2020 here!
Raluca Balasa holds an MFA in Creative Writing: Fiction from the University of Nevada, Reno. Her approach to writing is character oriented, often dealing with love/hate relationships, antiheroes, and antagonists who make you agree with them. Her short work has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, Aurealis, The Mithila Review, and Grimdark Magazine, among others. Currently, Raluca works as a freelance editor and English teacher in the Toronto area. Her debut science fiction novel, Blood State, was released in September of 2020 from Renaissance Press.
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