Two Poems by Romana Iorga

Editor’s Choice Award


 

a woman made entirely of air

these days I worry about          percentages
              who knows how much          fear
is enough to inflict          irreversible
              damage           who knows
if merely by passing through someone’s life
              I end up taking away          the only
air                       that person can breathe

that poem you wrote

             is only half of something unsaid
hold it                next to the mirror
             so that it looks                 whole

do you look whole?      how       

             can you tell?                    breathe
on its surface                 for now
             be the wind                     soon
to become        gale       storm      hurricane

you’ve been holding         this mirror
             to the poem’s lips             far too long


Originally from Chisinau, Moldova, Romana Iorga lives in Switzerland. She is the author of two poetry collections in Romanian, Poem of Arrival and Simple Hearing. Her work in English has appeared in Tilde, The Normal School, Cagibi, Washington Square Review, PANK, and others, as well as on her poetry blog at clayandbranches.com.

Image Credit: “Together with Nobody,” Analise K. Pacheco
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