Stephanie Kartalopoulos
Flicker and Repair
After reading an article on the ways in which replicated firefly enzymes
and stem-cell research could benefit heart disease patients
The crystalline mind tussles with each racy thought―the way juice spills
on Formica. The flexing instincts of fireflies.
The brown bags
hot to the touch and harkening their own sort of promise, even when half
burned down.
The flame strengthens.
And to have the spook to think that a replicated glow could be my Seraphim―
a sort of protection and miracle gutting my doubt like a worm tendrilling its way
inside a fresh apple. Something to add grist and gusto
to the way
you rallied for the agitated heart to relax, to retract against its skeletal hard.
But also to regenerate. Even in the height of uncertainty such as this,
a cranky voice crying:
blasphemy, blasphemy! The way of it all! Something just a little ungracious.
As the light flickers right and grows, giving the slightest flair
of repair to the loving muscle.
As the dogged heart speeds
to its strong beat after drinking a sharp flame.
To Define Dilapidation
You would think a failing house on cinder blocks. The porch
crooked, weedgrass poking through the slats,
somewhere near the back-forest of a highway town.
You would think the owner a guy with scurvy.
But maybe that’s a bruise. A purpling on the underbelly. A force
that speaks vacancy in the cavernous mother of my heart.
Even now, years after your swollen legs stilled a hospital bed.
Your unkempt lungs barely able to whisper
their simplest want for water. Even as the wheezy sounds
worked over our shared name. Oh in those minutes
before your heart collapsed, unable to hold straight
with even the simplest foundation. Oh if I could give you
some muscle, a walking path, a new patch of grass
to surround your loveliest house. Some potted tomatoes
however long past you would smell them
and proclaim too ripe. Oh if I could fix that day.
As If By Dream
New York, 1996
I am growing unsure of my heart and the world around me.
O disobedient starling, unable to control your own secretions.
O oil beetle, your after-trail slick down my throat,
your death tap a language of a different light.
One great and electric shock. Soon enough I will unravel
to little more than a face after the brightness has taken
its leave, a tilting down to your unearthly stare.
No map, no historical tract can trace these things.
Just a shoot-forth, hazy thought. And in what belief
will I find my safety? How can I veil myself?
Fertile
Somewhere after the houses burning from
beneath their heaviest frames, after
the red that rises in the wake of a recessed heat.
Somewhere after the third time
you told me to find my own hell
because I am too small to enter yours.
I am searching for the things that a younger you
begged me to depend on,
the implement to help me throw open every sallow curtain.
The issue of daybreak is important;
I am looking for what has left me here,
the something more
or less that rides out beyond
the tumbled light,
the color of river water after
the stones have been rinsed.
Stephanie Kartalopoulos is a doctoral candidate in Creative Writing & Literature at the University of Missouri. Her poems are forthcoming and published in journals that include Barn Owl Review, Grist, Pebble Lake Review, 32 Poems, Harpur Palate, Phoebe, and Waccamaw.
Return to November 2012 Edition
After reading an article on the ways in which replicated firefly enzymes
and stem-cell research could benefit heart disease patients
The crystalline mind tussles with each racy thought―the way juice spills
on Formica. The flexing instincts of fireflies.
The brown bags
hot to the touch and harkening their own sort of promise, even when half
burned down.
The flame strengthens.
And to have the spook to think that a replicated glow could be my Seraphim―
a sort of protection and miracle gutting my doubt like a worm tendrilling its way
inside a fresh apple. Something to add grist and gusto
to the way
you rallied for the agitated heart to relax, to retract against its skeletal hard.
But also to regenerate. Even in the height of uncertainty such as this,
a cranky voice crying:
blasphemy, blasphemy! The way of it all! Something just a little ungracious.
As the light flickers right and grows, giving the slightest flair
of repair to the loving muscle.
As the dogged heart speeds
to its strong beat after drinking a sharp flame.
To Define Dilapidation
You would think a failing house on cinder blocks. The porch
crooked, weedgrass poking through the slats,
somewhere near the back-forest of a highway town.
You would think the owner a guy with scurvy.
But maybe that’s a bruise. A purpling on the underbelly. A force
that speaks vacancy in the cavernous mother of my heart.
Even now, years after your swollen legs stilled a hospital bed.
Your unkempt lungs barely able to whisper
their simplest want for water. Even as the wheezy sounds
worked over our shared name. Oh in those minutes
before your heart collapsed, unable to hold straight
with even the simplest foundation. Oh if I could give you
some muscle, a walking path, a new patch of grass
to surround your loveliest house. Some potted tomatoes
however long past you would smell them
and proclaim too ripe. Oh if I could fix that day.
As If By Dream
New York, 1996
I am growing unsure of my heart and the world around me.
O disobedient starling, unable to control your own secretions.
O oil beetle, your after-trail slick down my throat,
your death tap a language of a different light.
One great and electric shock. Soon enough I will unravel
to little more than a face after the brightness has taken
its leave, a tilting down to your unearthly stare.
No map, no historical tract can trace these things.
Just a shoot-forth, hazy thought. And in what belief
will I find my safety? How can I veil myself?
Fertile
Somewhere after the houses burning from
beneath their heaviest frames, after
the red that rises in the wake of a recessed heat.
Somewhere after the third time
you told me to find my own hell
because I am too small to enter yours.
I am searching for the things that a younger you
begged me to depend on,
the implement to help me throw open every sallow curtain.
The issue of daybreak is important;
I am looking for what has left me here,
the something more
or less that rides out beyond
the tumbled light,
the color of river water after
the stones have been rinsed.
Stephanie Kartalopoulos is a doctoral candidate in Creative Writing & Literature at the University of Missouri. Her poems are forthcoming and published in journals that include Barn Owl Review, Grist, Pebble Lake Review, 32 Poems, Harpur Palate, Phoebe, and Waccamaw.
Return to November 2012 Edition