Having to learn to be a self
begins with the I splintering into many -
the morning doppelgänger, mouth fumbling
for the right words, unskins before ingesting
her own tongue, midday, the I is a caravan of
assumptions, the I smuggles in an honest shedding
every nightfall, the I will have the mother wound
ooze behind every syllable, touch, sigh, pinched
nerve, at night, your finger traces the birthmark
on my neck down to the supraclavicular fossa
where the I curls up in lymph nodes, oval, tiny
stirrings prone to cast light on God’s mysteries,
the I residue learns to zipper its way back into
black joy, carrying across someone else’s dream.
Clara Burghelea published two poetry collections: The Flavor of The Other (Dos Madres Press 2020) and Praise the Unburied (Chaffinch Press 2021). Her poems and translations appeared in Gulf Coast, Delos, Mantis, The Los Angeles Review and elsewhere. She is Review Editor of Ezra, An Online Journal of Translation and Translation Editor of Reunion: The Dallas Review
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