What if we could measure peace
Reclining in a beach chair
Breathing in the salt-tinged atmosphere
Attenuated by a blast of snow
Apprehending music from the seagulls
Shuffling through angel imprints in the sand
Tomorrow we are pierced by shrills and
Ambulances simulating rescue
Dealt a bill for almost dying
Sirens screaming through the terrace
If this is what it’s like
To be arrested in a corpse of adolescence
Then what might Grandma tell us on her deathbed?
What might it be like to be a grandma
Praying on her deathbed—
At eighteen life is terror!
I dither on the balcony
The temperature is always right
The other day
They brought a painting through Fifth Avenue
Stenciled eyes and angled shoulders
Jutting through the styrofoam
One displayed a grimace in a primal mask
In the background a fragmented
Sky is jousting with a plate of grapes
Clouds contend with flower petals
Falling through the cracks
I cycle through the portents
Sight distorted by the sheen of fear
I cannot remember how to smile
Through a novel on the seaside
Placing bets on other people’s stories
When no one might defend the likes of mine
Let me have a say—
Show me through this mutilated fantasy
Called metropolitan creation
Tomorrow, I might wind up in another office
Waltzing through the mountainscapes and bayous
I’ll conjure up the tales of adventure
Likening the fairies, knights and dragons
To a girl who would never care for money
In a fantasy in my fragmented unimagination
All the while collecting laudatory designations
Medals made out in the name of fiscal yield
I cannot pretend to say just what they mean
Rothko made a string quartet before he pledged himself to colors
I cannot imagine what it’s like to reinvent myself
When everyone is watching
The dissonance ascends into the ventilation shaft
If a string quartet performed a faceless motive
Can we really call it music?
In the face of monochrome and boxes
Melodies have been forgotten
In another city,
Writers, painters and musicians shuffle towards the train
Displaced by what is duly permanent and practical
The irony of corporate complaints!
After studying the poetry of Sylvia Plath and T.S. Eliot at Columbia University, Liza Libes moved to Chicago, where she currently runs an education startup. Her poetry, which frequently addresses themes of female identity, Judaism, and desire, has appeared in literary journals such as Gone Lawn, Jewish Women of Words, and Subterranean Blue Poetry. When she is not writing, you can find at her favorite bookstore or opera house, perpetually overdressed.