Stylization
Fallout
Natatorium
Technics
Glory
Crossing
Anesthesia
Gossip
Peninsula
Polar
M_M
Limestone
Each pin in the doll
is examined. What color
the head? Is it pushed
through true? I re-
position them for comfort.
She wants to be close
again. Even then I
papier-mâchéd over
the parts I knew she’d
have comments for.
When you screen
someone behind
paper, then silk,
then stone, they still
believe they can see—
piece color flashes
and filaments
to light a being.
When the time came
to say I love you it
was an afterthought,
we who had been loving
each other for years,
the receipt tape of our
lives rolling down
the mountain through
snow then damp asphalt.
We had untangled
the Christmas lights
in her hall, and then
it was not slow in
coming, almost as though
the writers forgot and
the actors let slip,
every meaningful scene
had happened and I,
the minister of words.
Imagine panels of light
pressed on the water,
under it, ones we can
swim through and touch
on the pool tiles. Gooey
rays spill a pattern like
tightly packed blood
vessels. A woman surfaces
and pulls off her goggles
but doesn’t look to
the sun. How can you
not, I think, as I lift
my eyes toward the only
illuminated corner.
Ice fingers and snow
pinned to the banks
like batting. The walk
clicks a dial behind
my eyes and static
flows in—a sermon,
the prep basketball
game, this traffic
report working another
tongue. New cars
won’t have AM radio
anymore but when
I push out toward
the silent winter
the bands light up
a huge silver-faced
receiver glowing blue
and gold, analog colors
that no longer exist.
Maybe it’s the scrape
of the cheek running
into your jaw or
the blue draped over
your thigh—perhaps
how you leaned
only slightly toward
your father or clapped
in surprise’s
absence. You aren’t
a child or some old
idol’s pale guise.
As you raised them
to us, I saw a future
untangle from your hands.
You know you’re
dangerous—your
torch of hair motioning
us toward the freedom
only you can find.
You wanted to fly
and throw blades
as the coldest wind
whips your cheeks.
It’s as if your limbs
create a picture
we haven’t seen.
Lawless in an
unnamed country,
we hope to never return.
They say it happens often,
mostly in children
after they wake.
I remember her leaning
over me, a blurred
portrait, when I wailed
for you, elongated
each sound in your
name. “Your husband?
Do you have children?”
From the rift in me—
“Where is he?”
A tape rewound from
the nights I thought
you dead. I rose off
the sheets and grabbed
for you like a ghost.
When I heard you were
gone I hated that I
foresaw it, ignored it?
One more woman wedged
under a thumb, albeit
a beautiful one, hedged
in conifer, trimmed with pansy,
drowned in milk and honey.
As I heard, you said,
“I don’t want to do this
anymore,” and he, “I can’t
imagine doing anything else.”
You took less than your
share, a bargain to leave,
to become anonymous
again. It’s the cleaver
in the night, a fool’s
pride; I fear you think
I took his side. The stories
hung on the walls are
gone. I know that when
you last so far past
desire, you don’t miss it
when the time comes to go.
A cross-topped
spire noses up
through the evergreens
and crickets scream
at midday. What
would it be like
to jump again?
I’m beginning
to forget about it.
My body recognizes
itself as my mother’s,
though I tell no one.
Muscles snap loose
and float off, layers
of green in panorama.
Once, I wrote a
poem about wanting
to live forever.
Think of a map.
Press your finger
on the southern
edge and see
how it rises,
starched, as I
drive. That is
the pull toward
northing. Find me
the shivering trees,
the cold spring,
the sunlight.
I did not stop
at the town where
I would stay, where
it would be
prudent to stop.
I went up to
the beach, to numb
the ice into me,
a hard reset.
I say I’m not,
but I am running.
It stops when
I fall off the map,
can no longer
keep my balance.
Truth be told it’s
a word I cannot
see myself in—
I dip in and slip
out of it like water
after a cold swim.
It’s too tight or baggy,
a garment made
long before my time,
some hand-me-down
as an only child
I never had to wear.
A single syllable
that beats on my
brain—I congratulated
another poet for just
saying it today—
the word has vanished
from my tongue and,
like a child, run away.
I can tell you how
I’ve been swimming
in this water since
childhood. How brave
you must be to wade
in bark and bloated
bees, to push the cottonwood
blossoms away like
curtains and make
your own green carpet.
The deep water terrifies
me. I shower ceilinged
under sky and dry
vines, shivering against
the Midwestern May,
returning to the water through
which I could never see.
Sandra Marchetti is the author of three full-length books of poetry, DIORAMA (Stephen F. Austin State UP, 2025); Aisle 228 (SFA UP, 2023); and Confluence (Sundress Publications, 2015) as well as four chapbooks of poetry and lyric essays. Her poetry appears in Ecotone, Poet Lore, Blackbird, Southwest Review, Subtropics, and elsewhere. Essays and stories can be found in AWP’s The Writer’s Chronicle, Pleiades, Mid-American Review, Barrelhouse, The Account, and other venues. She is Poetry Editor Emerita for River Styx Magazine.
