three micro-poems from Calendars & one long poem from Under the Nile-Green Sky
Andreea Iulia Scridon
Gatsby gazing over West Egg
That little green light
across Facebook Messenger,
online. . . .
Imagine being a tree
people cutting their names into your flesh
inside a heart
The Stars in Florida
are like cystic acne
so many of them
and just as human
blinking in
and out
Footprints in the Snow
I took fairy tales out of the library,
and walked out into the gingerbread.
It leaked into the toe of my boot.
I bought cheese from the deli shop
and wore the clouds’ stars in the cape of my hair.
Alone at home,
I made myself hot chocolate.
As I drank it,
I watched the blue-white wheels
stick themselves to my old pane.
I waited for the snow to stop.
It fell slow and terrible,
The kind of snow that dances
more than it falls.
On a naked branch,
a raven,
run away
from the Tower of London,
smashed an old chestnut open.
They say that ravens live
for a very long time.
This was before the moths ate me.
The snowflakes swirled
into a eddy,
they quickened!
The door burst open with the wind!
The raven, frightened,
flew away.
I heard sharp trotting:
a tiny carriage drawn
by two ostriches, spurred
by a gigantic moth.
Get in,
he said.
I squeezed myself inside.
Let’s go,
I ordered.
But bring a lamp,
I said as an afterthought.
The moth nodded in approval.
We sped down the steps
of my dingy flat,
leaving London behind
in such a blur
that I became queasy.
Stop!,
I cried.
We halted in a lilac forest.
Be careful,
said the moth,
lighting a cigarette.
This place is enchanted.
Whoever enters deep
will never come out again.
I nodded absently,
popped an anti-nausea pill.
Soon after,
I fell asleep,
my head resting
on the trunk of a banyan tree,
a sleep so deep
that I did not perceive
the cold moths
eating my clothes off, off, off.
Some time ago,
I obstinately refused
to learn to read, only gazed
at pictures of exotic animals,
faded by the golden hour,
on the old steps of my house
in Central Europe.
There I was,
before my eyes.
I hid, naked, behind abandoned
cactus pots, my vision
blurred by tears.
Regret
handcuffed my heart.
It’s time to turn back,
said the moth,
draping his leather jacket
over my shoulders.
I don’t want to go
I don’t want to go I screamed
A kerosene lamp swung in the dark.
Andreea Iulia Scridon is a poet and translator. She studied Comparative Literature at King’s College London and Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. She has a poetry pamphlet, Calendars, forthcoming with Broken Sleep Books and a poetry book, A Romanian Poem, forthcoming with MadHat Press in 2022. Her debut poetry book in Romanian, Hotare (“Borders”), won second place in a national manuscript contest and is published October 2021. Andreea Iulia Scridon is online at www.aiscridon.com.