Electricity. Carbon. Twisting strands
of chromosomes. The man who hid
in your neighbor’s attic for weeks.
The arms of our galaxy. The tiny
pink door your daughter found
nestled in birch roots.
*
Anxiety, before you knew its name,
before you knew not everyone
held that sliver of ice inside their brains,
that slow cascade of panic—what if—
what then—what the fuck
is wrong with you?
*
Gravity. Radio waves. The monarch
inside the caterpillar, inside the chrysalis
hung like an earring, pale green spotted
with gold. The body of Hedviga Golik
holding a cup of tea in front of her television—
mummified, undiscovered for 42 years.
*
How the apple tasted on the roof
of the parking garage, horizon
going haywire over the mountains,
the satellite dishes, the water tower’s
bright graffiti. The poem you failed
to write about that sky, that apple.
*
The missing girl in the basement.
The bones in the oil barrel. The work
of dead women, their tallying
and intricate weaving. Telltale grooves
in their teeth where rough fibers
were smoothed into thread.
*
Frequencies your damaged cilia
cannot translate—rush of traffic,
cicadas, wind in the leaves.
At night, you slip your hearing aids
back into the case, high pitches
dissolving like sugar.
Sarah Burke is the author of Blueprints, winner of the 2018 Cider Press Review Editors’ Prize. Her poems have received the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, the James Wright Poetry Prize from Mid-American Review, and the Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize from Swamp Pink. She has work published or forthcoming in 32 Poems, Beloit Poetry Journal, Bicoastal Review, Elysium Review, Ploughshares, Wildness, and other journals. Burke lives in Pittsburgh and holds an M.F.A. in creative writing and environment from Iowa State University. Visit her online at sarahburke.ink.
Image: “Je n’ai jamais de nouvelles d’elle maintenant” by JC Alfier
JC Alfier is a poet and photo-artist whose aesthetics are informed by Yoko Mizuki, Francesca Woodman, and especially Katrien De Blauwer.
Pine Hills Review 