After Remedios Varo’s Celestial Pablum
The moon is my baby.
It keeps me up--
demanding its pablum.
I am in a tower.
I am always in this tower now,
wearing brown, and
sitting on a little stool
in front of a little table
in this little chamber
that always needs
cleaning. I dutifully
pipe starlight in
through a hole
in the ceiling--
crushing celestial
fragments down
to tolerable volumes.
I note my wiry hair
that begs for pruning,
the crescents swelling
under my eyes,
the stairs leading
out to sky,
as I spoon-feed
my caged charge
and wait
for fullness.
The moon is my baby.
It keeps me up--
demanding its pablum.
I am in a tower.
I am always in this tower now,
wearing brown, and
sitting on a little stool
in front of a little table
in this little chamber
that always needs
cleaning. I dutifully
pipe starlight in
through a hole
in the ceiling--
crushing celestial
fragments down
to tolerable volumes.
I note my wiry hair
that begs for pruning,
the crescents swelling
under my eyes,
the stairs leading
out to sky,
as I spoon-feed
my caged charge
and wait
for fullness.
Victoria Nordlund's poetry collection Binge Watching Winter on Mute was published by Main Street Rag in June 2019. She is a Best of the Net and 2020 Pushcart Prize Nominee, whose work has appeared in PANK Magazine, Rust+Moth, Chestnut Review, Pidgeonholes, and elsewhere. Visit her at VictoriaNordlund.com.
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header photo: remedios varo's "celestial pablum" (1958)
← back issue 6: FAIRYTALE next →
header photo: remedios varo's "celestial pablum" (1958)