Awakened by a Mosquito
The blank TV screen smooth as egg-white.
Radiator lines would make a nice Elizabethan collar.
The TV screen's feet are becoming animated,
looking confident,
taking up space, as is
important in first impressions.
RGB's collar could be seen
a flat version of Elizabeth's.
Let's steer away from the wired-up TV,
away from accessorizing,
a different plane of being;
don't get depressed—
not everyone can even partially view Rome;
but we can all play an absent grand piano,
foreign to the touch with an oval scent.
Dimension E
Sometimes the floor becomes level with the
stain of telling. Already we’re reeling on a slant.
Lean into the world in a silver egg, reflections
and all.
Our knees cross,
north and south,
south and north,
caps.
The dog inside each of us tilts a spirit look-alike.
Let’s examine the face of kindness and its
relatives, insert some quantum perspective.
Shira Dentz is the author of five books including SISYPHUSINA (PANK, 2020), winner of this year's Eugene Paul Nassar Post-Publication Book Prize, and two chapbooks. Her writing appears in many venues including Poetry, American Poetry Review, Cincinnati Review, Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, New American Writing, jubilat, Denver Quarterly, Lana Turner, Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day Series (Poets.org), and NPR. Interviews with her about her writing appear in journals such as Rain Taxi, Ploughshares, Waxwing, and Kenyon Review. She's a recipient of awards including an Academy of American Poets' Prize, Poetry Society of America's Lyric Poem Award, and Poetry Society of America's Cecil Hemley Memorial Award. Currently, she is Special Features Editor at Tarpaulin Sky and lives in New York. More about her can be found at www.shiradentz.com.