And what if they, too, were taken away
the low notes, the flat notes, the natural
sounds? Consonants, vocals, the round O’s
I’d miss, curved commas, slow rhythms
ripple and flow. Starlings in flight I’d miss,
murmuration—flash of black wings
banking the sky. Indigo, olo—my favorite colors
what if they, too, were taken away?
Kaleidoscope pills stashed in an envelope
my grandmother stumbling around—why them
why not me, her hands on the wall, tracing
the stucco, the peeling veined paper—feeling
her way to the bed. The TV on. Nearing my program
its last episode my own volume fainting
blurry the image: I hope I will sit, my face facing
east, the pale sun, your warm hand on mine.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 6.
Valy Steverlynck is an Argentine-American mother, artist, emerging poet, and oyster farmer based in Maine. Steverlynck’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in Poets Reading the News, Literary Mama, Panoplyzine, and Cider Press Review. Her visual work has been shown at multiple galleries and art museums, including the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, DeCordova Museum, Fuller Museum of Art, and Centro Recoleta, Argentina. When not tending to her oysters, Steverlynck likes to take long hikes in the woods, swim in salt water, and read. She is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.See all items about Valy Steverlynck
