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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