Zosia Wiatr - Eight Poems
Reflection of a Thermopolium, Winter 2020
250 days/after the pleasure of nearby strangers/dissolved/into crisis
news arrives/that a to-go-food bar/at Pompeii/was unearthed
fabulously preserved
frescos of duck snacks/a hound friend/a dulcet sea nymph rides her/lavender seahorse
I am/beside myself/I am outside/my lonesomeness
with delight/at this news/I perceive steam above/those earthenware bowls/ I conceive
customers/regulars chatting/the proprietor offering/a fond gesture/a gentle ribbing a/morsel of the day
I would take fish and/dried fruits before/snails, sheep, pig soup and/depending the hour/and company/one glass
of spicy wine/the scent of which will linger/two millennia
even on a meager budget/later I will take/some olives or/if I am well
to-do/my dinner party/will comprise nine/guests reclined/on wooden lounge-couches/with tortoise shell inlay/because
of course it would/I serve juniper/coriander/cinnamon, imported—
the proprietor/of the snack bar/now a collection of bones/bones, also/the nearby lapdog
I wonder what use is/a fleeting halcyon/against past/future/disaster/
on the patio down Albina Ave/a round of whiskey sodas/a platter of fries/for the table/summertime carelessness/far from this necessary/isolation/I am
waiting/on that mirth/and a side of honey mustard
The World We Live In (Una Maravilla)
“Homero Gómez González, a former logger who managed El Rosario butterfly reserve, vanished on 13 January.” -David Agren, Mexico City
“...las novias del sol, el alma de los muertos” -Homero Gómez González (c. 1970-2020)
Guardian,
who, in the end, was saving whom.
it’s too late for deliverance from this ruin
but not too late for your complete metamorphosis.
an on-and-on needle
pricks at the forest,
threatening deflation
but then again, a million wings—
this gathering tempest,
this orange apex,
a dependable solace
at least one more fall
Guardian,
at first, what was missing from your noxious cocoon.
were you scared
a hectare of sacred pines
was certain
of milkypink toxin
transformer
of global positioning systems
and when you pulled yourself from it
did those wings weigh
how long until your devotion
to this small digester
this sleepy
this kaleidoscope
Guardian,
what is it like to be needed so ignorantly.
plexippus plexippus
if only saying it over
again were spell
sufficient to endure this withering
nowhere-to-go
Guardian,
did you always know your sacrifice would be entire.
for a monarch so
unmonarchlike,
common tessellation,
drinker of drams,
drowned en mass
in another’s visionless
quest for the luster
of crushed wings
Guardian,
what have we done.
you say esperamos
as though the force
for life were greater
in all of us than
the growth and gnaw of its
tarslick counterpart
will any contingency
push through quickly enough
Guardian,
did you see the murder coming.
your body turned blockade turned
too powerful, too keen
a leverage
did you taste the threat
in your feet
and try to run
did your lungs glisten
a final gesture
before they dumped your body
over a well
at this point, no matter,
Guardian, you’ll know by now—
is the Furthermore reflected
in ultraviolet
Guardian
how will we go on.
you are one
among a billion
flights that didn’t reach
overwintering’s roar of repose
how will we keep against
severed antenna —
flickering efflorescence —
a dawning to end that superlative light