Stacey Balkun
The City in the Distance
after “Sleep” by Salvador Dali, 1937
The city in the distance shrinks
against a pale sky, white tarp hung low
over this desert―our desert―of half-light.
We’re half-asleep, two foreheads propped up
by dying trees, lips held apart and parched.
From a distance, it looks like floating―
but I can feel us sink, crutched, growing heavier
than we can hold. The single mile
between our houses has never felt so long. I’m through
with memory, you say. How could you,
I think, falling deeper into myself―our shadows leaning
different ways, our hands pulled apart but tense―as if held by taut elastic.
I wait for it to snap.
Stacey Balkun’s work has appeared or will appear in The Los Angeles Review, INCH, Bodega, Perfume River Poetry Review and others. Stacey was named a finalist for the Tupelo Press Spring 2011 Poetry Project and the Tucson Festival of the Book 2013 Literary Awards, and received the 2013 C.G. Hanzlicek Poetry Writing Fellowship. Stacey was selected to be Artist-in-Residence at the Smoky Mountains National Park this summer. She lives and writes in California.
Return to November 2013 Edition
after “Sleep” by Salvador Dali, 1937
The city in the distance shrinks
against a pale sky, white tarp hung low
over this desert―our desert―of half-light.
We’re half-asleep, two foreheads propped up
by dying trees, lips held apart and parched.
From a distance, it looks like floating―
but I can feel us sink, crutched, growing heavier
than we can hold. The single mile
between our houses has never felt so long. I’m through
with memory, you say. How could you,
I think, falling deeper into myself―our shadows leaning
different ways, our hands pulled apart but tense―as if held by taut elastic.
I wait for it to snap.
Stacey Balkun’s work has appeared or will appear in The Los Angeles Review, INCH, Bodega, Perfume River Poetry Review and others. Stacey was named a finalist for the Tupelo Press Spring 2011 Poetry Project and the Tucson Festival of the Book 2013 Literary Awards, and received the 2013 C.G. Hanzlicek Poetry Writing Fellowship. Stacey was selected to be Artist-in-Residence at the Smoky Mountains National Park this summer. She lives and writes in California.
Return to November 2013 Edition