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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Art Spring 2024 >
      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
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      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
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    • Issue #28 Art Fall 2024 >
      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
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    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
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    • Issue #29 Art Spring 2025 >
      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
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    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
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      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
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      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
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      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025

Virginia Smith

[glass violin]

a cento using lines from Wisława Szymborska

          I want a glass violin
crafted from a world too naked,
                              too embraced,

too lost in the stretch of grave
up to its blue skull, to see music

precise as a beetle that lies on the path
through wheat grass and mint,
three pairs of legs folded neatly on its belly.

Earth eats and breathes air, and sleeps,
clothed in skin, and blood just beneath,
and people who live with practical claws,

a failing of infant fingernails, not knowing
that bell ropes, like human hair, turn gray.

          Mirrors here
are cruel and smooth as asphalt: all of us

fit neatly inside the empty envelope
propped against a cup by the suicide’s bed.

Questions: under what conditions do you dream
of the dead? What do they hold in their hands?
And in their eyes, what do you see? Be specific.

Statistics: of all loves, mention only marriages;
of all children, only those who were born;

from each hundred, those not to be taken
          ​lightly: forty and four.

In the garden, someone digs up a rusted
argument from beneath a bush,

someone crouches under a bench,
pretending to be a wolf,
just like the growling we call a dog.

As if only a room away, the world
sings and combs her hair, which still grows.
​

[witches broom]

                                          
A moth large as a house alights,
feet barely brushing shingles,

its new-dried green the exact
color of summers one never expects
          to see again.

I want more than you
offer, something austere –

​slight lamp-sway through woods,
a red-hooded jacket worn,

adored years ago that casts
a glow, panes loosening the wind:

          come in     come in.
Am I beautiful yet? Be careful

of what you are willing to do
without: children covered in
                                 cobwebs,

windows that hang in air,
a forest of candied cottages,

pale animals caught in a fell
of bluets and witches broom.
                              Each season

built this wall of bones, your body
rushing away from the names
​                              I gave you.

Cracks in the plaster become
a fascination, as when a crazing

of bare oak branches against
night skies become openings,

an escape from the predatory
eyes trapped in moth wings

that warn I am not what I seem
and no one will thank me for it.

​

[thank you for your submission]


While there is much to admire here,

the character you’ve fashioned
from me to fit your self-titled tome

feels strangely unformed for such
an inherently endearing figure.

Also, there is a frustrating lack
of dialogue between her person-

ality and any other,
most noticeably your own.

Due to the constant strain
and pinch of the role,

I regret to inform you that I
will no longer be inhabiting it.

As for the sketch you’ve offered
for my own (tentatively

planned) epic-length tale,
after careful deliberation,

it’s been decided
to cut your part entirely.

Best of luck placing it elsewhere. 


 

--
Virginia Smith received her MFA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University. Her poems have appeared most recently, or are forthcoming, in Denver Quarterly, Lily Review, Moria, and Southern Poetry Review.

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Art Spring 2024 >
      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
      • Luiza Maia Spring 2024
      • Christy Lee Rogers Spring 2024
      • Erika Lynet Salvador Spring 2024
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Poetry Spring 2024 >
      • Terry Belew Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Diamond Forde Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Caridad Moro-Gronlier Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Charlie Coleman Spring 2024
      • Isabelle Doyle Spring 2024
      • Reyzl Grace Spring 2024
      • Kelly Gray Spring 2024
      • Meredith Herndon Spring 2024
      • Mina Khan Spring 2024
      • Anoushka Kumar Spring 2024
      • Cate Latimer Spring 2024
      • BEE LB Spring 2024
      • Grace Marie Liu​ Spring 2024
      • Sarah Mills Spring 2024
      • Faisal Mohyuddin 2024
      • Marcus Myers Spring 2024
      • Mike Puican Spring 2024
      • Sarah Sorensen Spring 2024
      • Lynne Thompson Spring 2024
      • Natalie Tombasco Spring 2024
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2024
      • Donna Vorreyer Spring 2024
    • Fiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Bryan Betancur Spring 2024
      • Karen George Spring 2024
      • Raja'a Khalid Spring 2024
      • Riley Manning Spring 2024
      • Adina Polatsek Spring 2024
      • Beth Sherman Spring 2024
    • Nonfiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
  • Issue #28 Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Art Fall 2024 >
      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
      • Matthew Fertel Fall 2024
      • JooLee Kang Fall 2024
      • Jian Kim Fall 2024
      • Robb Kunz Fall 2024
      • Sean Layh Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
      • Jodi Balas Fall 2024
      • Clayre Benzadón Fall 2024
      • Catherine Broadwall Fall 2024
      • Sara Burge Fall 2024
      • Judith Chalmer Fall 2024
      • Stephanie Choi Fall 2024
      • Sarah Jack Fall 2024
      • Jen Karetnick Fall 2024
      • Ae Hee Lee Fall 2024
      • Svetlana Litvinchuk Fall 2024
      • Mary Lou Buschi Fall 2024
      • Angie Macri Fall 2024
      • Gary McDowell Fall 2024
      • Sam Moe Fall 2024
      • Camille Newsom Fall 2024
      • Elizabeth O'Connell- Thompson Fall 2024
      • Olatunde Osinaike Fall 2024
      • Jessica Pierce Fall 2024
      • Diane Raptosh Fall 2024
      • Isaac Richards Fall 2024
      • Robyn Schelenz Fall 2024
      • Christopher Shipman Fall 2024
      • Alex Tretbar Fall 2024
      • Ruth Williams Fall 2024
      • Shannon K. Winston Fall 2024
      • Wendy Wisner Fall 2024
      • Anne Gerard Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Fiction Fall 2024 >
      • J​oe Baumann Fall 2024
      • ​Morganne Howell Fall 2024
      • Matt Paczkowski Fall 2024
      • Ryan Peed Fall 2024
      • Gabriella Pitts Fall 2024
      • James Sullivan Fall 2024
  • Issue #29 Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Art Spring 2025 >
      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
      • Jesse Howard Spring 2025
      • Paul Simmons Spring 2025
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2025
      • Elzbieta Zdunek Spring 2025
      • Na Yoon Amelia Cha-Ryu Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
      • Christian J. Collier Spring 2025
      • ​Shou Jie Eng Spring 2025
      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
      • Tammy C. Greenwood Spring 2025
      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
      • Ben Kline ​Spring 2025
      • ​David Moolten Spring 2025
      • ​Tamer Mostafa Spring 2025
      • ​Rongfei Mu Spring 2025
      • Cynthia Neely Spring 2025
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2025
      • ​Bleah Patterson Spring 2025
      • ​M.A. Scott Spring 2025
      • ​Liam Strong ​ Spring 2025
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2025
      • ​Cassandra Whitaker Spring 2025
      • Angelique Zobitz Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Fiction Spring 2025 >
      • Vanessa Blakeslee Spring 2025
      • K. J. Coyle Spring 2025
      • Meredith MacLeod Davidson Spring 2025
      • Jessica Mosher Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Nonfiction Spring 2025 >
      • JM Huscher Spring 2025
      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025