Survival Sports
I take men to Trieste to eat them.
After games each beautiful
horse of a man follows me there.
Finding a new one is like:
tell me more about yourself
in the low light, what did
you do next, you must have
been, yes, do you want some
more? That sounds, yes, and then
what? I unfold him slowly, if
he curls open like rice paper
I might tell one truth.
But then I have to work fast,
framed butterflies quickly turn
to dust, half their grace is in flight.
Hotel curtains drawn, I hum
as I prep without spices, smoke
twists to sky through the cracks.
A sonata in cherry red
soon my mouth is full of blood.
If you tried me in a river I’d float,
yet what else can a woman do?
The other card, undealt, was saint
a life of linen and waiting.
Difficult to find a fair fate
playing with an incomplete deck
made by others — I chose at least
to take pleasure in my hand.
After games each beautiful
horse of a man follows me there.
Finding a new one is like:
tell me more about yourself
in the low light, what did
you do next, you must have
been, yes, do you want some
more? That sounds, yes, and then
what? I unfold him slowly, if
he curls open like rice paper
I might tell one truth.
But then I have to work fast,
framed butterflies quickly turn
to dust, half their grace is in flight.
Hotel curtains drawn, I hum
as I prep without spices, smoke
twists to sky through the cracks.
A sonata in cherry red
soon my mouth is full of blood.
If you tried me in a river I’d float,
yet what else can a woman do?
The other card, undealt, was saint
a life of linen and waiting.
Difficult to find a fair fate
playing with an incomplete deck
made by others — I chose at least
to take pleasure in my hand.
Sept / Oct 2023
Elisa Madina is a writer living in Berlin.
Art: Hilma af Klint. The Ten Largest, No. 4 — Youth. Oil, tempera, paper. 1907.