{"id":5759,"date":"2025-12-01T23:02:51","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/?page_id=5759"},"modified":"2025-12-01T23:02:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:02:51","slug":"bang-thayer","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/fall-2025-digital-lit\/bang-thayer\/","title":{"rendered":"BIG BANG \u2014 Lynn Thayer \u2014 Fall 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Waking Up In Trump’s America by Ann-Marie Brown<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

BIG BANG<\/h1>\n

Lynn Thayer<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It starts with weight loss. A few pounds
\n<\/span>across weeks even when your hands<\/span><\/p>\n

still reach for cake, a glass of red wine.
\n<\/span>Rewind. It starts with pain. The kind\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

that fuzzes corners of your vision
\n<\/span>like an encroaching swarm, wasp\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

sounds raging, building to hostile crescendo.
\n<\/span>Except the noise isn\u2019t nature\u2019s warning,<\/span><\/p>\n

it\u2019s great swaths of your own blood blitzing
\n<\/span>smaller capillaries around your head, ears<\/span><\/p>\n

until you think <\/span>I might pass out<\/span><\/i> but you don\u2019t.
\n<\/span>For the next year you\u2019ll often think\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

of that night in Dallas when you excused yourself
\n<\/span>from dinner, walked swiftly to your room\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to not incite panic among coworkers and
\n<\/span>called your husband to say <\/span>I might not make it home<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s your voice and it\u2019s not. Your body and not.
\n<\/span>Between flesh and mind, love and friendship<\/span><\/p>\n

entanglement pulls taut, together, intertwined
\n<\/span>like electrons drifting through two different galaxies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rewind, further still. It starts from nothing.
\n<\/span>Indiscriminately. As unwanted things tend to do\u2014\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

once absent then present, a beginning
\n<\/span>a big bang without the <\/span>big<\/span><\/i> or the <\/span>bang<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

just one cell dividing, then adding
\n<\/span>and \u00a0 adding \u00a0 and \u00a0 adding \u00a0 and<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lynn Thayer<\/b> is a multidisciplinary artist living with chronic disability in Colorado. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in <\/span>Santa Clara Review<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Bicoastal Review<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Wild Roof Journal<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Months to Year<\/span><\/i>, and <\/span>Tendon Magazine<\/span><\/i> among other journals. Her first chapbook, <\/span>A BODY IS NOT AN OMEN<\/span><\/i>, was a finalist for Cathexis Northwest Press\u2019 Unpublished Author Contest in 2025. See more of her work at <\/span>www.lynnthayer.com<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ann-Marie Brown<\/b> is a Canadian artist known for her encaustic paintings that explore emotional and psychological depth through ambiguity, texture, and intuitive process. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and the U.S., with recent shows at Soul Gallery (Winnipeg) and the Women\u2019s Art Museum of Canada (Edmonton). Her paintings are held in the permanent collections of Senvest, the Women\u2019s Art Museum of Canada, and the Encaustic Art Museum (Santa Fe). Residencies have allowed her to work in studios internationally, most recently during an extended residency in Helsinki awarded by the Artists\u2019 Association of Finland. She currently lives and paints on the edge of the Salish Sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Back to issue<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  BIG BANG Lynn Thayer   It starts with weight loss. A few pounds across weeks even when your hands still reach for cake, a glass of red wine. Rewind. Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5765,"featured_media":0,"parent":5625,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5759"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5765"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5759"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6033,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5759\/revisions\/6033"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}