PRATIK DOUBLE LA ISSUE SPECIAL : AMERICAN POET ELENA KARINA BYRNE''S POEM, "If This One Dies"

 

ELENA KARINA BYRNE

If This One Dies

                                    so will we…— Penny Dreadful

        It’s like painting the memory of you out

of the bushes, like awake-painting

       the bushes in the dark, letting

       it dry in my hair, like painting the bushes out

of the picture so you have somewhere

to stand.

 

Make no bones about it,—   I have no bones.

I sweep this floor, swim, sweet

the skin, the soft

       of you with my boneless tongue,

like taking a mouthful of fish to say I was out

for the horizon’s salt water, I was out

       for bees blurring their water-wings’ sunlight inside the ribs

of the body of my lover …

 

Know, it’s been some time since I’ve had love, it’s been an aftermath-time

       since carrying down our

       diving bell of final air, and so long

       since the harbored paint color, since the piano keys’ teeth

       were set into the body

so it has to sing.

 

Elena Karina Byrne’s fourth book is If This Makes You Nervous (Omnidawn, 2021). Former 12-year Regional Director of the Poetry Society of America, she is a freelance lecturer, editor, Poetry Consultant & Moderator for The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books and Literary Programs Director for the Ruskin Art Club. Her many publications include a forthcoming chapbook, NO, DON’T (What Books Press, 2020), Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize XXXIII, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, Verse Daily, BOMB, Denver Quarterly, REEL VERSE: Poems About the Movies, Poetry International 25/26, The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, New American Writing, and The Kyoto Journal. Author of five poetry collections and a collection of essays.

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