Your Quaint Conceit

I wake to cheap ontology.

Behold the fake
of two headless horseman that won’t fit
in one single nightmare.

Rising action must be one man’s room,
or one gunmetal voice
giving directions.

Once I took off my dress
for his shadow.

To appease is not apostrophe
but a rich bisque of climax, the cauldron
of yearn kept stirred.

A fire is the premise
of a pyre. Nothing’s solid
but a ditch of amnesia,

whatever a woman keeps
warm. Whatever a woman

keeps stewing for a hero
needs a home
to leave, a prize to win,
a vaunted arc of return.

And one rock is a surface
aching for lichen,
the marvel of moss

I bury under breath.

Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Her writing can be found in diverse journals, including Prairie Schooner, North American Review, FLOCK, Southern Humanities Review, Crab Creek Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Virga, Whale Road Review, and others. She serves as Co-Director of PEN Birmingham. A finalist for the 2019 Kurt Brown AWP Prize, the 2019 Greg Grummer Poetry Prize, the 2019 Frank McCourt Prize, and the 2019 Streetlight Magazine Poetry Contest, Alina won the 2019 River Heron Poetry Prize. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com or @aliner.