Assistant Editor Jess Jelsma Masterton: Much has been written about productive ambiguity. In Kim Winternheimer’s essay on the Masters Review Blog, she defines productive ambiguity as that which “keeps the reader interested and is an enjoyable part of discovery. Information and details are slowly revealed, filling in gaps of understanding just as the reader needs them.” In this microfiction, “The Horses Are Ready and They Need to Go,” Christopher Citro strikes a fascinating balance between what is concrete (the coffee, the slack rope) and what is merely gestured at (the relationship between the lover and the speaker). The result grounds the reader in image while entering into the cerebral and surreal.
To hear Christopher Citro read his piece, click here:
The Horses Are Ready and They Need to Go
What I ate with my coffee. How I felt about the slack rope. What I remembered from the rivers of my youth, the mud and catfish. It’s a gearing up just to speak as the self. How do I feel about the pines in the front yard? Yes, Mahler, but what about after the Mahler? I love to hear you clinking things in another room.
In the year we’ve been here, you’ve rearranged your studio maybe four times. Me, so far, none. I know I need help. I’m just not programmed to know how to give it to myself. Now all I have to do is remember that when I need it.
Twenty minutes ago I held your body between my lips.
I can put my hand to my mouth.
Someone’s painting horses pouring across a valley floor. It’s been done before. They don’t care. They’re doing it again.
Christopher Citro is the author of The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy (Steel Toe Books, 2015). His awards include a 2019 fellowship from Ragdale Foundation and a 2018 Pushcart Prize for Poetry. His poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, and Best New Poets, and his creative nonfiction in Boulevard, Quarterly West, The Florida Review, Passages North, and Colorado Review. Christopher teaches creative writing at SUNY Oswego and lives in sunny Syracuse, New York.
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