Theadora Siranian
Albedo
She was imminent, she was a blown-glass
battleship, she pulled the space
of the room in through her fingertips, pushing
back magic, cataclysms, destruction—
she spoke of the chosen and the called-upon
she said the green light turns upward
she told lies and the hope
seared
a white hole in my skin even from the beginning
I smelled the possibilities burning away,
heavy as low tide,
birds circling in the heat, spotting the light: dark, hungry hammers
to my anvil
—everything was acrid like after a fire, we lost things in the fire
an explosion of nuclear breath
a snow storm of heat: in the morning,
the summertime every day season moment
she brought the fire to her lips
and she consumed the sun and all of its light
—she radiated was split open
in rays
blasting the image into the eyes of everyone
and it burned a hole in me, I could feel it happen
every moment was a hole in my body
holy, holy body: the mother, the spirit, the ghost,
over and over
the love of a phoenix the heat an eternity
my navigator, my first lost keeper
—indescribable:
the sensation of flame you suck in
your lungs for a loved one
beautiful
little blond girl turned dark lovely
to be feared always
The Young Ones
Outside the basement window
the belly of winter:
cold has again undone the world.
*
On the inside, where the heat is,
what they believe to be passion
rises with frailty,
bits of ash
floating upward,
sticking to the smooth walls.
*
This is how they will learn
what it is to be
temporary,
this handling of each other.
Inside the hollow core
of this season they burn,
brief singes
unremarkable against
the concrete skeleton of the cellar.
*
They hang suspended,
wanting
an escape, warding
off daybreak, motion
sickness,
long silences driving for breakfast.
*
They cradle the permanence
of childhood
in their palms, fingers
closed gently,
opening their hands
to dust.
*
By the time teeth marks
fade from the insides of thighs
they are gone:
cast themselves away
from themselves.
Theadora Siranian is an MFA Poetry candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has poetry published or forthcoming in Gigantic Sequins, mojo, elimae, DIAGRAM, and Mason’s Road. In 2007 she received the Academy of American Poets Prize from Emerson College, and in 2012 was selected for inclusion in the Best New Poets anthology series.
