Epistle To…

by Margo Berdeshevsky

Dear one, you are not a flock of hummingbirds
sunning themselves in a golden day,
Nor a bad child nor a good one, just woman,
sheathed in skin and wish—
Dear wannabe most-precious-small-gem on a lone
long shore, mere stone, mere morning song, begging
for better worlds—
Dear sexy survivor in moonlit nakedness
touching each tree and unspent dream—
Dear mirror of longing and once upon blonde
on her cold April hill— aging night-bird
waiting for God to be pleased and yourself to say
yes ! Dear you, stained or invented by love or by shame
unspoken— you who only wanted magic‘s
hand to hold your breaking, and a good director
to make you a star !
Dear child of a mother’s slur and drunk, dear femme
in silk in grey Paris, dear memento mori of a once upon
self, still, Dear wannabe one, did you deserve to be alive
while streets or skies filled with bodies with no beds
or meals… Dear magic maker — say the right
charm to be loved by a God who might otherwise be
busy and turn you into dust—      Dear you, do you
love me just once completely, as sun climbs and
the nightingale leaves its last branch ? …dear body, be
enough for me to hold all night and all the nights and
lovers gone ahead, dear      self      be      loved—  beloved
of you, of my dear and first      self—      or at least, with
a Blakean flame: be… the reunion of the soul and the body…
yes?

::

Margo Berdeshevsky, NYC born, writes in Paris. Most recent book: Kneel Said the Night (a hybrid book in half-notes) (Sundress Publications). Forthcoming: It Is Still Beautiful To Hear The Heart Beat from Salmon Poetry. Author as well of Before The Drought (Glass-Lyre-Press/finalist for National-Poetry-Series); Between Soul & Stone and But a Passage in Wilderness (Sheep-Meadow-Press), and Beautiful Soon Enough (FC2), recipient of 1st Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Award. Other honors: “Grand prize for Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award,” and “Robert H. Winner Award” from Poetry Society of America. Her poem, “Somewhere Everywhere” was selected by the Academy of American Poets for the poem-a-day. Widely published in international journals including New Letters, The Night Heron Barks, Kenyon Review, Plume, Scoundrel Time, Gulf Coast, Southern Humanities Review, and Dark Matter: Women Witnessing. Her “Letters from Paris” have appeared for many years in “Poetry International online,” for example: https://www.poetryinternationalonline.com/letter-from-paris-in-march-2019-from-margo-berdeshevsky/  For more please go to her website at: http://margoberdeshevsky.com.

Image: Marcus Wallis

ID: a hand holding fairy lights at the beach.