*

Nina R. Alonso’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, New Boston Review, U. Mass. Review, Ibbetson Street, Mom-Egg, Bagel Bards, Wilderness House Review, Muddy Water Poetry Review, Southern Women’s Review, Broadkill Review, etc., and David Godine Press published her book This Body. She edits Constellations a Journal of Poetry and Fiction currently open for submissions of poetry and short fiction. See guidelines: constellations-lit.com. She also teaches ballet at her school, Fresh Pond Ballet School.

Nina R. Alonso

Smoke Erase

Fly skyward avoid

another useless bag of hurts

heart waves roll sandy shores repeating

references in untranslated French

inhaled pretensions include

bits of Greek and cosmic Hebrew

how to calm the dying pulse

writing snake evasion

oily upon ocean sheen

moon voice whimper

waters reflect metallic

jewelry not even cheap silver

either gun glow or a snail’s

dull shine in vanishing light

how to disappear

dissolve what aims my way

numb too many bloody places

snap-shot smoke erase.

— Nina R. Alonso