Small Cities & Fruition
Small Cities
These are our spindled cities
spires slicing up the sky
bristles of the stiff-rowed comb
slipped in the middle
in the smaller spaces we rock
forth and back, sway on our feet
and the tops of some crumbling peaks
piercing the filmy skin of the sky
small vein slings fluids, frothed air
currently flowing, out around
our layered sponge
our lacquered surface
our laid-out city
before, civilization was porous
as in, the water from the sky filtered
through the earth
and did not collect in bastions of
cream and neon green uncertainty
so often I think the core must be parched
because we have diverted the water
the church bells are audible
but the turning of the center is silenced
the waves, cracked and wired shut
we are still here among the crevices
our tiny corners we carve to catch
stray glimpses of the sky
Fruition
I hold a punk heart gleaming raw
and ruby-red
smart slick muscle catching the light of day
too cold and quivering
chrysanthemum for breakfast
coelacanth glinting in the sunlight
never should see this kind of day
eye is flushed and still
I hold you, my sister
on this dim iron landscape
to think we too slogged up from the deep
to take a mottled breath on land
to tear our cuticles
and spread our jellied fingers
among the last of the cypresses
in the soft, moss-studded earth
Natalie Korman is a poet, writer and the author of the microchapbook Heliotropics (dancing girl press, 2017). Her poetry has recently appeared in Channel, River River, Recenter Press Poetry Journal and Vagabond City. An alumna of Barnard College, Natalie lives in California where she enjoys contemplating the poetics of the banana slug.