ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Larisa Svirsky is a philosophy PhD candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Voices, Smartish Pace, The Fem, Uppagus, and The Ocean State Review. Her chapbook, Mission, recently won the Sheila Ortiz Taylor Chapbook Competition and will be published by the OIA Arts Press.
Also by Larisa Svirsky:
Mortal logic
Epiglottis
Belonging
I've been making gratitude lists
on doctor's orders
but they don't tell me any more
about what I'm grateful for
One day it's sunflowers
accidentally buying so many peaches
I have to make pie
my advisor's suggestion
to stop beating my heart against the wall
the wet grass on the lawn
the wobble in my front porch
the purple streaks of bird shit
the memory of settling my stomach
on the deck in California
coloring a picture of a phoenix
being, somehow, a phoenix
having that story, which I like to tell
about going to class on a medication
that made me giggly and forgetful
sitting through the last day of Existentialism
blood dripping and clotting internally
coagulation, coalescence, togetherness
of some of my blood cells with some others
But really what I want to tell you is
that victory leaves something else behind
and what happens to the ashes once the phoenix has risen?
and isn't a phoenix a mythical creature?
and don't I want a real life here on this planet?
and I do, sometimes, but if I admit that
I have to know it means leaving
some pitiful part of me behind
who never stood a chance
but stands always in my shadow
waiting until she's large enough to ride this ride
but she will never grow
and I don't know how to stop wanting
to buckle her in and take her someplace safe
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
