Past Life in Peripheral Vision
Sophia Marina
what’s sketched on these medals
I golden age, sign alibis
in my name, ever-metal, lengthened to
heatwave, brunette sick show, critical
to calibrate the rungs, this synthesis
of foldable ladders, flung
steps and no discernible imprint, tinkers
with my psyche, swells
me to supple to flood proof
caverns, waver as do the stalactites, ousting
silk from the innards as do
the glow worms, buried in the tundra, feeding
on tangles of salted cassava, teat of
my forebears running the mouth, this runt
makes blunders, I crusade my little number,
my fucks and my bucks, reverse
the huffing nostrils in rear view, prepare for
less than paradise, split
lip on a loved skull, belief
in the brink of, stirring
sculpture from the mush, I revive
these homegrown cells, peel them from pistil
to develop a fragrance, gallant as the ridgeback
inheriting this road rage, I trade
my velocity, the dotted
linear yellow, my girlish drape, the baby grand shape.
Sophia Marina is a poet from the Texas border. She is a Managing Editor for Poets Reading The News and Co-Lead Poetry Editor for Alien Magazine. Her poems are published in 4×4.


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