Wednesday 15 July 2020


Weekend Getaway

by Emma Alexandrov


Just for an hour on the beach
I accord myself my right to hunger.
I amuse myself with pretending I am immortal.

Beside me my man's body dissolves into sand
from the inside out.
I imagine unfurling inside him
there is a conch-shell spiral
of sand replacing his organs
twirl by twirl. Soon he will blow
away. I look into his darling face,
which I can't even see.
Instead there is a zoetrope
where flicker the faces
of all the men I've loved
like nervous reflections on a tidal pool.

I imagine god is cross
with my hubris
and he changes the beach
into a bank of sand
at the bottom of a glass bottle
turned on its side.
I feel the sky sloping around me like tight walls
and my blankeyed man is all I have
to comfort me, half-buried in the sand looking
like a doll so cheap it's got a sticker
for a face. Thing always peels off
and it's always me
who's gotta stick it back on,
poor thing,
that doll.


* * * * *

Emma Alexandrov is keeping herself from dwelling too much on mortality by reading and writing poems, trying to figure out how to get computers to think, and editing Windows Facing Windows Review. She's currently rooted in Atlanta, GA, Portland, OR, and Poughkeepsie, NY. 

1 comment:

  1. Amazingly intimate surrealism. The morphing imagery--the whole poem is zoetroping in my head!

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