Poem Beginning with a Ballerina Music Box and Ending In a Field of Sunflowers
by Erica Abbott
Let me tell you a secret: all they want to do is come
and watch you spin. You can dance all you want,
but they will still slap the lid down mid-revolution.
The pedestal you stand magnetized
to is no mirror, but a glacier poised to sink,
a crack running along its sagging shelf. See:
you’re not the only one hanging on
by adoration alone. I could hold you up
by a thread, drill a hole through your head
like a precious ornament, but really, what
would that solve? Come early morning,
when the ballet is done and the boy awakes,
you will fall face first into the icy
waters below—so quick I’m sure there’s
an equation to determine the rate
at which a girl will spill herself
at the wicked hands of weak men. The sirens
blare but you like the sound of his voice best.
Listen, things are changing fast now:
isn’t it funny how an ablation can be both
glacial and cardial? These tiny burns
scorch the surface until only shameful pools
and scars remain. This isn’t how I wanted
to watch the world go. Please, come tear
my feet from submersion. Come, grab
my hand. I want to be lowered into the ground
not like a coffin, but a sunflower. In the end
there will be sunflowers, I’m sure of it. And
I will be there, primed for whatever comes
next when the skies shatter like a femur
on its last turn. The field naming its new.
I want nothing—do you hear me? Nothing
but the world opening overhead again.
Erica Abbott (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based poet and writer whose work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Shō Poetry Journal, Pirene’s Fountain, Philadelphia Stories, Midway Journal, and other journals. She is the author of Self-Portrait as a Sinking Ship, is a Best of the Net nominee, and is a poetry editor for Variant Literature. She is currently pursuing her MFA at Randolph College. Visit her website at erica-abbott.com.