Küf #10 by Sinejan Kılıç Buchina
there are versions to everything by Sarah Ghazal Ali
a day in another country I am somewhere,
surviving. here, I grow tired of my lack of shell.
I am anything but stranded in this skin, my whole life
now before me as a single breathtaking moment
pulsing, blue and yellow ribboning through me
until I am pure white light.
my whole life now a mirror I can’t find my face in,
and once I shattered it with a fist. the next morning
it rose again, intact. to catch my breath I tell myself
this must be devotion, glass swallowing
my every pigment, nothing left to reflect. absence
as absorption, something hungry and flattering.
there are angles even to discipline. the lazy swat
of my hand in a city and eleven dead bees in
the orchard I’m designing elsewhere. here my hips
are sharp so always bruised, drawn as they are
to table edges, sure as they are that somewhere else
their purple is being kneaded into soft yellow.
and shouldn’t I cling to kneading? in dreams I try
to lengthen my stride. at crosswalks I study
other bodies more obviously made to be touched.
to better survive, I let soft hands press into the base
of my neck. they bend light in my direction,
by which I mean everywhere.
surviving. here, I grow tired of my lack of shell.
I am anything but stranded in this skin, my whole life
now before me as a single breathtaking moment
pulsing, blue and yellow ribboning through me
until I am pure white light.
my whole life now a mirror I can’t find my face in,
and once I shattered it with a fist. the next morning
it rose again, intact. to catch my breath I tell myself
this must be devotion, glass swallowing
my every pigment, nothing left to reflect. absence
as absorption, something hungry and flattering.
there are angles even to discipline. the lazy swat
of my hand in a city and eleven dead bees in
the orchard I’m designing elsewhere. here my hips
are sharp so always bruised, drawn as they are
to table edges, sure as they are that somewhere else
their purple is being kneaded into soft yellow.
and shouldn’t I cling to kneading? in dreams I try
to lengthen my stride. at crosswalks I study
other bodies more obviously made to be touched.
to better survive, I let soft hands press into the base
of my neck. they bend light in my direction,
by which I mean everywhere.
Sarah Ghazal Ali is a Pakistani-American poet with roots in California. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from homonym journal, Red Hen Press, and others. Find her at www.twitter.com/sarwwaa.
Sinejan Kılıç Buchina is a NY based artist and visual instructor. She is of Circassian-Abkhazian ancestry, born in Turkey. She received her B.F.A. in Art in Istanbul, and continued her education with programs in London and Berlin, and completed her MA in New York. Buchina has exhibited in galleries and institutions throughout New York, London and Istanbul, and is currently working on evolving projects in New York, Sukhum and Istanbul.
