Want wanting

by Clara Burghelea 

​At night, all my women stir like cinders,
red poppies blooming in their mouths, wild 
strands over their eyes, straying through 
the humid grass, gambling stardust, spilling
word spouts from their armpits, heart valves
flapping like hummingbird beat, their flesh, 
a rosary of salt and crimson, feet hardly touching
the steamy soil, air stammering close to their ears, 
blackbird eyes caroling in maples, wombs glistening 
like fireflies, all things wash up eventually, first finger
of dawn, they all slip under my skin, tamed and full, 
a soft congregation of half-befuddled beasts, dipping 
and going, just hear the rushing of my own blood.

---

Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. Recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations appeared in Ambit, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her second poetry collection Praise the Unburied was published with Chaffinch Press in 2021. She is Review Editor of Ezra, An Online Journal of Translation.

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