at the end of this poem I pulverize to fog
the act conveys a disturbingly satisfying feeling
of crashing, times and times again
in this poem, my youth does not
wash down in a flash flood of wrongs
instead, poem boyfriend gravitates toward me
it is summer and we are young and
spend the duration of this poem
inside a filthy Ferris wheel gondola
poem me self-evidently settles
on poem boyfriend’s lap
we rock back and forth like shipwreck in a storm
I pour words in his mouth
my words sting but they belong there
words in poems are much
like words between real people
here they bomb through walls that
used to separate poem me from reality
now poem raindrops wipe poem history clean
this poem has its own mind and does not
care how I feel about it
poem is nearing its end
it’s just me now, wearing sweatpants and smoking
on a frozen pond
poem is trying to tell me something
at the horizon, there are familiar faces
poem bridges the distance between (real) gone names
in this poem, there is no end of me, or boyfriend, or gondolas
we all pulverize to fog and we hang around at the horizon
this poem imitates life
imitates constellations of history repeating itself
here, poem me makes confetti from my memories
lays them out to a crossroad for tomorrows
real me finds it looks pretty from afar
————
Ana Prundaru is the author of Unstable Tales (Dancing Girl Press, 2016) and 1L4S3T (Etched Press, 2016). Her prose, art and poems appear in various publications, including Calyx, 3:AM, Rattle, Smokelong, Kyoto Journal and Litro. She lives in a forest-side home near a zoo in Switzerland and will probably never get used to being awakened by lions’ roars.
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