for Isabela V. (d. 1988)

1988. March. We do not leave the mortuary vault.
At night we huddle on spread blankets
As we did at the rock concert the summer before.
We drink from plastic bottles, cheap wine,
To celebrate the sexy quiver of your lip, the shifty curvature,
The ember ghost of each flaunted lisp.
Lascivious tongue: oyster slit metaphoring what, you had asked.
Ambrosian tongue: changing despairs like workshirts.
Viperine tongue: fangs loaded with subversive jokes.

When we blacklist the teachers who threaten
To fail us if we attend the funeral—
Suicide is the ultimate insult
to our harmonious communist life—
You wink in approval. We rise
On numb toes to kiss your eyelids.
We do not leave the mortuary vault
For three days. March. 1988.

*Excerpted from Father Dirt (©Alice James Books, 2010) and reprinted with permission.

TAGS: Father Dirt, Mihalea Moscaliuc, poets, Suicide is for Optimists

MIHAELA MOSCALUIC's first poetry collection, Father Dirt, won the 2008 Kinereth Gensler Award and was published by Alice James Books in January 2010. Moscaliuc’s poems, translations, reviews, and articles have appeared in TriQuarterly, The Georgia Review, New Letters, Connecticut Review, Prairie Schooner, World Poetry Today, Poetry International, Pleiades, Soundings, and Interculturality and Translation, among other journals. She lives in Ocean, New Jersey, with her husband (poet Michael Waters) and son (Fabian), and teaches at Monmouth University and in the low-residency MFA Program in Poetry and Poetry in Translation at Drew University.

Related Posts Nicelle Davis: The TNB Self-Interview by  Nicelle Davis Danny Baker: The TNB Self-Interview by  Danny Baker Dan O’Dair: The TNB Self-Interview by  Dan O’Dair Poet in the Mortuary Pool by  N.L. Belardes An Interview with Emma Trelles by  Steve Almond

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 12:39 am and is filed under Poem, Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.