Two Poems
Eva Andrea Bertoglio
Ritualistic Fortune
Every way oakly, umber & goldenrod,
rains of ginkgo leaves loosen from unfallow
boughs. I clutch a bundle of coins reclaimed
from a beheaded mystic, they are embossed
with an eye crying singular tears.
I sought alchemic transformation but when
I swallowed my coins I did not become
the gold-dipped woman I had bargained for.
Instead I was a lion soon betrayed by seven
swords, tied to the wheel, turnt as a key
and bled over the fire
— honor the source of your sustainment —
Spiritual Misalignment
I
What is my most closely held image?
I am small and sitting on top of the ladder
leaned against the carport,
a house two blocks away aflame,
the moon a cruel crescent.
Memories disintegrate
even as they are being remembered.
II
Can I let go of this image to find God?
No. I will not let go of the images
which turn and return
— they belong to me.
III
How am I separated from God?
Multiple dimensions where language folds
the word Time into God. I am separated from
others by the river rising rapidly covering my island
body until even my trees are submerged with black waters.
This leads me to the soft pain
of a morally inexplicable cosmos,
entreats:
Are you brave enough to drown
in love regardless?
Eva Andrea Bertoglio is an artist, writer, and lifelong Oregonian. Her work can be found in 50 Haikus, Oregon’s Best Emerging Poets, Pom Pom Lit, Unchaste: Volume III and the chapbook First Winter of Persephone. She lives in Portland.
