Poetry: Elizabeth Marino

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WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

I am a poet from Chicago.
If music can be carried place to place
and one constantly moves, it’s hard
to hold what is needed. Objects drop
from my hands. I am from the Americas.
You say you have people here?

Home to home, each time something is
lost and almost replaced. A drumbeat continues.
Things gathered up and held to the bosom
slip through fingers as you set down
objects. Everything does fall away
in spite of holding tight and a long reach.

Music can be carried place to place
a melody holding a footfall, a half-
remembered lyric re-asserts itself
differently each time. Learn to mix
adobo at home. A drumbeat continues.
You say you have people here?

Music can be carried place to place
Yellow shock of forsythia bush
irrupts in front of the red brick two-flat.
A cobblestone stamped Illinois Brick
under your feet. I am from the Americas.

Music can be carried place to place
a last full blossom on the peony bush
the blink of spring, the shock
of stillness on the edge of Eternity
that carousel, the turning called a revolution
of the lost musical cake server.

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DELIBERATE LOVE

This speech that
melts silence –
a leaf falling
into water. Plunk!
A blast of wind
drops held rain. 

Still the silence.
That language which shows
its force
in crisp
consonants –
this, the other. My pulse
races
but not a single blow
has landed.

Language can note
“I am here.”
Let no others gather
for talk, without deliberate love.

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BIO

Elizabeth Marino is an American poet based in Chicago. Her work includes the full-length collection Asylum (Vagabond, 2020), and the chapbooks Ceremonies (dancing girl press, 2016) and Debris (Puddin’head Press, 2011). Her recent contributions to international print anthologies include: The Significant Anthology, Muffled Moans Unleashed, Rise, Extreme, and Building Socialism. She holds an MA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and BA from Barat College, with undergraduate work at the University of Oxford, and has been an English instructor at area colleges and universities.

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