Sophie Friedman-Pappas, Wet Day Leda, 2018Found materials, embroidery thread, dirt, resin, blue bottle
fly, houseflies, hand embroidered found fabrics, buttons, and hand carved wood.
TWO POEMS
MEHRNOOSH TORBATNEJAD
Twenty Minutes at Manhattan Beach
I confess no coastal betrayal
since I layover in the same name,
so I have earned this brief marveling
at the end of the paved hill—ceiled
with palm trees and power lines— I
plodded down in smooth sandals;
this, being the loll of a concluding sun that
comes apart like a wrapped gift
in urgent hands, melts into the water
and vaporizes, its fickle and edible shade
screens the sky with honey and apricot,
which lingers over the ocean
dimming like denim soaking,
an impeccable breeze, of course, of course,
accompanies me, who is somehow
still close to the elements of a typical city;
by the way, I am also tired of begging- praying,
so in this twilight fascination,
I divorce any cosmic request or spiritual
musing from admiration for this
colorful making of dark; and then, some
pearly stars emerge ahead,
but of course, of course, they are not
stars but winged metals, sparkling arms
visible and distant enough that I don’t hear that
aerial growl of flight, seven of them
in a moving constellation head toward me
without a single sound, and the evening
joggers don’t hear the wow oh wow of
my gaping mouth,
and I am breathless for this scene
of shimmering monsters, curiously quiet,
seemingly suspended, against the fall of day,
and how lucky are the runways,
in a few minutes, to receive what was just
afloat, scraping the sapphire
between the clouds; and right now,
unknown to me in the tenth row
of one plane is a woman leaning
forward, the sweat of her forehead
glued to the clasped table
as she hyperventilates,
the stranger next to her notices and
places a hand on her back,
just as the vessel steadies in its descent;
she draws in a complete breath,
as if this whole time, someone else’s enchantment
alone was so divine
***
WOMEN WHO RUN
Away
not from home,
or to train, for the high— not
for that
Who can’t, if the sunset
competes like a defective
alarm, racing
into the ground
Who will, if the
mourn is darker than
when
there is loss
Who will, if bliss is
desperately obvious
and foreign to the
nerves—run
to interrupt the
self; yes, a
moment can be
good
and bright,
but a moment is
not
a memory
To pace the pant is just to
fluster the drear, for as
long as breath
is offered, though
what is even safe
when running from
the hazard of being
is to a peril deceptively
named: spring creek,
summer evening—
from earth to scraped dirt,
stacked with clutched grass
beneath dragged nails—
Whatever hell I
refer to, your
fight
was ferocious
Teeth do not crack, unless
your roar contends
with your mouth
A skull fractures
to curb the speed
of a hurled rock; I know
the need to hush the
piercing pitch of a
ceaseless throb,
and so often
the quiet to escape to is so
viciously quiet, god
declines
to follow
Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad’s poetry has appeared in Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and Waxwing among others. She won the 2019 LUMINA La Lengua contest and the 2016 Pinch Literary Prize, and is a Best of the Net, Pushchart Prize, and Best New Poets nominee. She lives in New York where she practices law.