Four Poems
Polina Riabova
Issue 11
Poetry
Soft
Wanting to cry and being unable
The slow sludge of extraordinary proportions
I always write “steel beneath the moss”
But it’s the dirt that crumbles
Over & over
Test
Boston. I made a mess
crawled inside a hole
in your head a fire burns
flames licking skin
aglow, like the sweat of a pimple
on an adolescent teenage boy.
We were once what we were
and now we’re this
green shrubbery, a softball.
#2 Crush
Stood on your tiptoes
skirt billowing, billowing
pale legs
I’m picturing
my face against your chest
every time I see you
online
“We are the same”
I think in wonder,
actually knowing nothing
certainly not knowing
how far this cross
will carry
or why I am the one
who’s gotta hold it up.
Supergirl at 6 am
So screw California
and friends that are never there
it beckons me
and then it recedes
in my dream the staircase stopped
abruptly
I was scared and beneath me
- No one to break the fall
I climbed up backwards;
I looked for the girl
who knew me
--
watching Supergirl at 6 am
praying softly as the sun comes up
on my knees or on my belly
staring at the iPad
I made fun of and fell in love with you
for having
now it lulls me to sleep
in the wee hours
of morning
--
all the friends left.
all the lovers found other lovers.
all I have is this,
and you.
Polina Riabova is a Brooklyn-based poet, writer and performance artist originally from Kupavna, Moskovskaya Oblast, Russia. She is a correspondent at Performance Is Alive, curator of The Blue Rose series, and Editor-In-Chief of PLASTER COCKTAIL zine.