{"id":13768,"date":"2024-11-01T04:28:15","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T04:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=13768"},"modified":"2024-11-01T20:28:20","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T20:28:20","slug":"tw0-poems-alexandra-malouf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=13768","title":{"rendered":"TW0 POEMS – ALEXANDRA MALOUF"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\n
DREAM OF A COMMON LANGUAGE\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n
 
\nI dreamed last night I was drowning<\/span><\/strong>
in your wreck,<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 salt breaking me<\/span><\/strong>
against coral and steel, while tide<\/span><\/strong>
ripped me further from shore<\/span><\/strong>
with each\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 stroke<\/span> and flapping kick.<\/span><\/strong>
I saw no<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0God in those waves,<\/span><\/strong>
only swirling foam, rust<\/span><\/strong>
mingled with sand, and you\u2014<\/span><\/strong>
Medusa,<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 your hair spreading<\/span><\/strong>
like bronze seaweed,<\/span><\/strong>
your heart-words, clitoral orchids<\/span><\/strong>
that wet so many<\/span> eyes.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0How?<\/span><\/strong>
You smiled,<\/span> famine\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of teeth,<\/span><\/strong>
let float my hand,<\/span> it should feel<\/span><\/em><\/strong>
like chasing breath or falling<\/span><\/em><\/strong>
never landing,<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0bleeding<\/span><\/em><\/strong>
and still<\/span> swimming<\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/p>\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

WALKING PAST DUSK<\/strong><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

A woman walking alone<\/span><\/strong>
spreads her shoulders broad and struts<\/span><\/strong>
bitch-glaring like she owns streets<\/span><\/strong>
she’s never seen. Swinging a bottle<\/span><\/strong>
with the heft of a flail, she tells roommates<\/span><\/strong>
to expect her at 11:38, selects at random<\/span><\/strong>
her route, sometimes: \u201chide<\/span><\/strong>
in hair salon,\u201d \u201chail a cab,\u201d \u201clight up<\/span><\/strong>
every button in the lift.\u201d<\/span><\/strong>
Tonight, she carries only<\/span><\/strong>
her black belt heart,<\/span><\/strong>
and rounds the same block twice,<\/span><\/strong>
listening for footfalls.<\/span><\/strong>
Earbuds silent, she hears only the hiss<\/span><\/strong>
of hydroplaning, the city’s breathing.<\/span><\/strong>
The sky is a denim haze,<\/span><\/strong>
empty of stars, and still<\/span><\/strong>
as bath water or tea steeping.<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alexandra Malouf has work featured or forthcoming in Prairie Schooner,<\/em> Pleiades<\/em>, and Ireland Poetry Review<\/em>, among others. I\u2019ve also been the fortunate beneficiary of the Ethel Lowry Handley Prize from the Academy of American Poets.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

@<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  DREAM OF A COMMON LANGUAGE\u00a0   I dreamed last night I was drowningin your wreck,\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 salt breaking meagainst coral and steel, while tideripped me further from shorewith each\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 stroke and flapping kick.I saw no\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0God in those waves,only swirling foam, rustmingled with sand, and you\u2014Medusa,\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 your hair [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13783,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[463,149],"class_list":["post-13768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-sargassum-hornieri-by-tsugaru-aomori","tag-wikicommons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13768"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13794,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13768\/revisions\/13794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}