The Poem I Call My Life

by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

                     

A woman must love herself

or who will do it for her?

All day long I have sat within

the loose walls of this poem

waiting to give birth

In this my delivery room

as thin as air

as fibrous as melons

I feel the contractions of time

ebb and flow of breath    like tides

my spirit knows no gender

In this season

I have no name

I refuse definition

I am only a traveler

and I carry my landscape with me

Tonight I am learning

to move through

slow syllables of ancient dark

like blood without a blueprint

I am learning to speak the language of trees

the alphabet of stars

Last Winter my thoughts were stillborn

They ran through invisible fields

where the unspoken words of dead men

are scattered    like rain or tears

They never learned to scream properly

with their mouths wide open

Tonight I will try again

I will close my eyes tight

I will push down hard against the sky

and I will bear myself

unreasonably luminous   and whole

like the full moon rising

In this poem   I call my life

where birth is the process

as well as the outcome

everything is possible

especially love

* * * * *

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.