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Holly Karapetkova

Sometimes I’d like to be seen.
I don feathers. I pray to God.
I cry. I stop crying.
My face is purple with the effort
listening for an answer.
A rock rolls downhill
obeying the law of gravity
unlike the flowers who grow upward
purple and fragile as moonlight
spreading across the desert—
a thing that isn’t supposed to exist
but here it is
a thing that isn’t supposed to exist
spreading across the desert—
purple and fragile as moonlight
unlike the flowers who grow upward.
Obeying the law of gravity.
A rock rolls downhill
listening for an answer.
My face is purple with the effort.
I cry. I stop crying.
I don feathers. I pray to God.
Sometimes I’d like to be seen.

Holly Karapetkova is the Poet Laureate Emerita of Arlington, Virginia, and a recipient of the 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. Her third poetry collection, Dear Empire, was awarded the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize and was recently published by Gunpowder Press.

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