Alina Stefanescu

one poem

Self-Portrait with Descendants of Things


I was the princeling, the garlic, the gaffe, never quite darling, but good for a laugh.

I was the tree ring, the left-behindling, the yellow raft.

I was the sullen, the liar,​ ​the lyre,​ ​the pants on fire,
the thousand nights in a bottle buried behind the swingset.

I was the seance, the hora, the maestro of sudden dead things on the patio.

I was the crowbar, the potlatch, the mystagogue of fireflies and streetlamps,
the street's longest living charade.

I was enough grief to go around
the party.

At my apogee, I was the girl with gall to watch descendants of things go by.

And the seismograph of familial hurt feelings, the doddered petal, the rash belt, the bolt.

I was all zeal and no patience at getting off in the basement
with none but god—his unfathomable eyes
on my face.

 
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Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Her writing can be found in diverse journals, including Prairie Schooner, North American Review, FLOCK, Southern Humanities Review, Crab Creek Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Virga, Whale Road Review, and others. She serves as Poetry Editor for Pidgeonholes, Co-Founder of 100,000 Poets for Change Birmingham, and proud board member of Magic City Poetry Festival. She won the 2019 River Heron Poetry Prize and attended Bread Loaf 2019 as a Poetry Contributor. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com.