Banished to the seaside
city made of diamond, we
left ourselves in frozen
fountains: I haven’t forgotten
the broken borders and glass
precipices. I’m used to being
lost all the time. I found my way
out of the labyrinth just to enter
veins of silver and onyx. This is
an empty street, a museum where
we packed away everything
precious then set the fire ourselves.
Lock the door and draw
chalk circles around each
inference. The furnace comes on,
wakes me like a symphony. Do you
understand this place that holds us
close to the feast and the wings. We threw
ourselves off the balconies but took
flight like imagined lamps. Wind around
a necklace swallowed, a dream
innovated – there are so many
things I wanted to preserve,
things I overheard at the train station –
closed and glorious with vines.
Dana Curtis’ third full-length collection of poetry, Wave Particle Duality, was recently published by blazeVOX Books. Her second collection, Camera Stellata, was published by CW Books, and her first book, The Body’s Response to Famine, won the Pavement Saw Press Transcontinental Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in such publications as Hotel Amerika, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, and Prairie Schooner. She has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the McKnight Foundation. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Elixir Press and lives in Denver Colorado.
