Michelle Bitting
Fugue State #2
On the streets of Istanbul
I got lost,
alien and at home
as humanly possible.
Minarets sang out
the wailing Call to Prayer,
a clockwork to race my pulse by.
Blue ships of plenty
docked Aegean-adjacent,
barnacle chests bulging nets
of silver mackerel
as I walked past.
Then tea from an hourglass
at the shop Sah Sultan,
color of crushed pomegranate
and served on mirrored trays
by men I couldn’t understand.
Turkish Delight made of roses
and emerald pistachios,
the white pelt of powdered sugar
melting as I chewed,
an aftertaste that followed me
through Mehmet’s Mosque
and the Spice Bazaar.
I wanted to roll like a dog in cardamom.
For sapphire pendants
rimed in crystal ice
to wink evil at me everywhere.
Eyes that trailed this other I’d become:
Gemini Girl
wearing the same clothes for days
because that’s what drifters do,
stay rugged and travel light.
Lean into a pillar
near the Hippodrome
and sniff where gladiators
once cracked their whips,
the gravel worn down by wheels
and centuries of teeth
to the park’s fine dust.
Where the dogs just lie around now
and dream
without fences or chains.
Like pillows,
like sundials or compasses,
their sleeping paws stretched
in a direction
impossible to map,
where faces blur into one
and names no longer matter.
Michelle Bitting’s latest collection is The Couple Who Fell to Earth (C & R Press, 2016) which received a starred and Best of 2016 medal from Kirkus Reviews. She has poems forthcoming or published in The American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative, Vinyl, Plume, the Paris-American, Fjords,Thrush, Diode, and others. Poems have been featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. Her book Good Friday Kiss won the DeNovo First Book Award and Notes to the Beloved (C & R Press) received a starred Kirkus Review as well. She has won the Beyond Baroque Foundation, Virginia Brendemuehl, and Glimmer Train poetry contests and been a finalist for the Poet's & Writer's Magazine California Exchange, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Julia Peterkin, among others. Poems have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes, and most recently, The Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize from Nimrod International. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University, Oregon and is completing a PhD in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute. For more info: C&R Press
Return to November 2016 Edition
On the streets of Istanbul
I got lost,
alien and at home
as humanly possible.
Minarets sang out
the wailing Call to Prayer,
a clockwork to race my pulse by.
Blue ships of plenty
docked Aegean-adjacent,
barnacle chests bulging nets
of silver mackerel
as I walked past.
Then tea from an hourglass
at the shop Sah Sultan,
color of crushed pomegranate
and served on mirrored trays
by men I couldn’t understand.
Turkish Delight made of roses
and emerald pistachios,
the white pelt of powdered sugar
melting as I chewed,
an aftertaste that followed me
through Mehmet’s Mosque
and the Spice Bazaar.
I wanted to roll like a dog in cardamom.
For sapphire pendants
rimed in crystal ice
to wink evil at me everywhere.
Eyes that trailed this other I’d become:
Gemini Girl
wearing the same clothes for days
because that’s what drifters do,
stay rugged and travel light.
Lean into a pillar
near the Hippodrome
and sniff where gladiators
once cracked their whips,
the gravel worn down by wheels
and centuries of teeth
to the park’s fine dust.
Where the dogs just lie around now
and dream
without fences or chains.
Like pillows,
like sundials or compasses,
their sleeping paws stretched
in a direction
impossible to map,
where faces blur into one
and names no longer matter.
Michelle Bitting’s latest collection is The Couple Who Fell to Earth (C & R Press, 2016) which received a starred and Best of 2016 medal from Kirkus Reviews. She has poems forthcoming or published in The American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative, Vinyl, Plume, the Paris-American, Fjords,Thrush, Diode, and others. Poems have been featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. Her book Good Friday Kiss won the DeNovo First Book Award and Notes to the Beloved (C & R Press) received a starred Kirkus Review as well. She has won the Beyond Baroque Foundation, Virginia Brendemuehl, and Glimmer Train poetry contests and been a finalist for the Poet's & Writer's Magazine California Exchange, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Julia Peterkin, among others. Poems have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes, and most recently, The Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize from Nimrod International. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University, Oregon and is completing a PhD in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute. For more info: C&R Press
Return to November 2016 Edition