Intermission
Clara Burghelea
Light hauls me out of bed, Greek sun
piercing the old shutters. A slipper,
soft as a creature, lies at the wooden
foot of the bed. Your scent lingers
on my breath like a promise. Like
oozing sand. The cry of a ghost bird
slays the air. Limbs stretch the length
of a wall in China. A persimmon in half
on the wrinkled table. Its fork-shaped seed
smiles a mild winter, claims the fruit seller.
It is worth a bite. Outside the window,
the postcard home day peels off in slow motion.
Against the teal-smeared wall, old and new
shadows bear their weight in silence.
Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. Recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations have appeared in Ambit, HeadStuff, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her collection The Flavor of The Other will be published by Dos Madres Press in 2020. She is the current Poetry Editor of The Blue Nib.
