Virginia Konchan
Tableau Vivant
Let me tell you about my marvelous god.
He is a landscape in which I play the moving tree.
Slack as a victim in a Victorian novel,
I carry a notebook to record what was said
in the interstice between hope and futility.
I am rowing to you on the great, dark ocean,
said Caravaggio. The internet may just be
the closest I’ll ever get to a kind of intimacy.
I wave my foam finger at the sporting event,
hope you’ll notice me in this mélange of fans.
I hold my own body, in lieu of someone else
holding it. The smaller one is, the greater the
likelihood of being loved. In the near-eternity,
all metaphors are exact, and when the doctor asks
where it hurts, I don’t hesitate. Right here. Here.
Within: the unborn. Without: bodies dashing
through the rain. I wanted to redouble my
efforts, but the primary effort was in vain.
Call me darling, call me dear. Drag me
by my legs, like a baby born breech,
into a higher atmosphere.
Virginia Konchan is the author of a poetry collection, The End of Spectacle (Carnegie Mellon, 2018), a collection of short stories, Anatomical Gift (Noctuary Press, 2017), and two chapbooks, including That Tree is Mine (dancing girl press, 2018), her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Boston Review, and elsewhere. Visit her website: Visit her website: www.virginiakonchan.com
Return to September 2018 Edition
Let me tell you about my marvelous god.
He is a landscape in which I play the moving tree.
Slack as a victim in a Victorian novel,
I carry a notebook to record what was said
in the interstice between hope and futility.
I am rowing to you on the great, dark ocean,
said Caravaggio. The internet may just be
the closest I’ll ever get to a kind of intimacy.
I wave my foam finger at the sporting event,
hope you’ll notice me in this mélange of fans.
I hold my own body, in lieu of someone else
holding it. The smaller one is, the greater the
likelihood of being loved. In the near-eternity,
all metaphors are exact, and when the doctor asks
where it hurts, I don’t hesitate. Right here. Here.
Within: the unborn. Without: bodies dashing
through the rain. I wanted to redouble my
efforts, but the primary effort was in vain.
Call me darling, call me dear. Drag me
by my legs, like a baby born breech,
into a higher atmosphere.
Virginia Konchan is the author of a poetry collection, The End of Spectacle (Carnegie Mellon, 2018), a collection of short stories, Anatomical Gift (Noctuary Press, 2017), and two chapbooks, including That Tree is Mine (dancing girl press, 2018), her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Boston Review, and elsewhere. Visit her website: Visit her website: www.virginiakonchan.com
Return to September 2018 Edition