[after all this, the riddles, the deep and flowered]
by Mackenzie Kozak
after all this, the riddles, the deep and flowered
visualizations, brushed hellebore, wounded hours
with my lover on a velvet couch, misting, trying
to calculate some kind of ruin, after the score lifts
the strings to a soft hovering, and we note the graphs
with their stern etchings, after the foil around the grapes
and the sighing, the standing in the fridge’s dull wind,
after wild turkey on the porch of a cabin, combing
for streetlights, hounds circling loose firewood,
after my eyes darting to each stroller for hands,
clutching, studying a woman’s face like a ledger,
after the grief and the other grief, the one that goes
translucent if you stare too long, years of this
and i’m still thinking of myself.
visualizations, brushed hellebore, wounded hours
with my lover on a velvet couch, misting, trying
to calculate some kind of ruin, after the score lifts
the strings to a soft hovering, and we note the graphs
with their stern etchings, after the foil around the grapes
and the sighing, the standing in the fridge’s dull wind,
after wild turkey on the porch of a cabin, combing
for streetlights, hounds circling loose firewood,
after my eyes darting to each stroller for hands,
clutching, studying a woman’s face like a ledger,
after the grief and the other grief, the one that goes
translucent if you stare too long, years of this
and i’m still thinking of myself.
Mackenzie Kozak is a poet and therapist living in Asheville, North Carolina. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Missouri Review, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. Mackenzie serves as an associate editor at Orison Books, and she is a finalist of the National Poetry Series. Find her online at mackenziekozak.com