Eromancy
divination by means of the air
O inevitable architect, in your false prime the last of your images blew off in a breeze of
sawdust & chalk. At the fair, I stole a pinhole photograph of the moon. I carried apple
blossoms floating over a black lake in my coat pocket. Your name, I ingested. Now light
empties over waves imitating driftwood, a dry weight, counterbalance to what love
abandons. The thought of blood in my arteries remains an illogic warmth. I remember the
earnest, but now uncertain, affections. The night tilts. Silver tokens, perhaps stars. I stand
among the living reading your initials. White ink tattooed on water.
—
This selection comes from Maureen Alsop’s book of poetry Mantic, available from Augury Books. Purchase your copy here!
Maureen Alsop, Ph.D. is the author of several poetry collections including Appartion Wren, Mantic, Later, Knives & Trees, and Mirror Inside Coffin (forthcoming). www.maureenalsop.com
Marika von Zellen has a BA in English and Creative Writing from Cornell College (no, not the one in Ithaca). She’s had poetry and fiction published in Open Field, Temporary Infinity, The Grin City Monthly, and the anthology Rock & Roll Saved My Soul. As an Editorial Assistant for Sundress, she’s copy-edited the book Picture Dictionary (2014); as a freelance editor she copy-edited the photography book Face It (2013). In the summer of 2012, she attended the Grin City Collective Artist Residency in Iowa. Besides writing, she enjoys theoretical physics, playing piano, ghost-hunting, climbing trees, and drinking good Czech beer. She’s also a scholar of Lewis Carroll.
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