Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Zorba’s Daughter, which won the May Swenson Poetry Award, Moon and Mercury, and two chapbooks. She is a Hawthornden Fellow. Publications include The Yale Review, FIELD, The Southern Review, Blue Lyra Review, et al.
Never from Here
a yellow moon
naked belly of the night
leans over the child’s bed
Chicago night
fish smells from the river
nothing but dread to eat
thin cotton nightgown
weaving a cocoon
about her shoulders
as she disappears
breath on a mirror
her habit
of covering her mouth
born here
prematurely tries to fly
Fuji covered with snow
a yellow moon
wrong part of the world
remembering a man
forever witness
in the corner of her eye
plumed hat velvet breeches
musketeer
observing her as event
the story in her hip
locked in
susceptible to touch
as her jumpy
hundred-meter heart
tripped by the starting gun