marina blitshteyn was once a refugee from the soviet union, raised in buffalo, ny. her first full-length collection, 'two hunters', will be published by argos books in 2018 with a clmp face-out grant. prior chapbooks include 'russian for lovers', 'nothing personal', '$kill$', and the forthcoming 'sheet music' with sunnyoutside press.
2 poems
by Marina Blitshteyn
100 headstones toppled
let the dead
sleep lest
a thousand plagues of curses on your head
a crown of muddled jewels
a crow sits
judging you
there is a black bird
in the eye of the storm
counting your tracks
there is a blade of
grass hell bent
on welcoming you
you who splatter
your vile on my lot
you who victimize
there are a thousand perfect poses
for your corpse awaiting you
i'd mind the rocks
i'd mend my fence if i
were you
i'd wash my scalp gingerly
there is a black stone
where you already die
a million times in your heart
there is a void accepting you
for all your holies
all your haunts reek of it
there is a ready-made
gulf of torture
promising you relief from this life
they'll eat you well
and may you feel that hollow
at the end of it
frida kahlo
what happens in culture
is one woman goes first
and gets tortured
the next one less
by some generation
a woman's a costume
a custom, a dress