stillborn

by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

you are always with me

even when you are not

Life's full empty room

Breath's bittersweet sigh

             

color of Nothingness

                transparent as angels

color of darkness 

                perforated with light

color of tears       

                fallen 

from the dotted blue blanket of Sky          

                   

you are always with me

even when you are not

suspended like the crescent moon

the alphabet of stars

the space untraveled

between us

as if 

inextinguishable

presence and absence

relinquish their names

surrender themselves to the Invisible

as if

       only

without holding

may we trembling  feel 

the infinite nearness 

of our immense 

aching 

              fragility                      

i marvel

at the innocence 

of your tiny unopened fists

how

butterflies  still 

fly from your lips

how mine drown   

in the drool of gurgled silence 

             

how  

even as  the umbilical cord 

untangles around my neck     

my voice     so far away

                   is trying to reach you--

buried so inexorably

in your muffled lullaby

i am always with you

even when i am not

* * * * *

"stillborn" was first published by Levure Litteraire.

Widely published, Antonia Alexandra Klimenko's work has appeared in XXI Century World Literature (in which she represents France) CounterPunch, The Original Van Gogh’s Ear Anthology,  The Rumpus, Levure Litteraire, Big Bridge, The Opiate, Strangers in Paris, Occupy Poets’ Anthology (in which she is distinguished as an American Poet), and Maintenant: Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washinton, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the Writer/Poet in Residence for SpokenWord Paris.