Poetry by Luminitza Manea

Metamorphi

(After Jorie Grahm)

One grey morning, youth collapsed into one grey morning. Lighter than

these years should be. Most plastic

trinkets in land

fills I will never

see. But I can almost hear the whistle blown through the debris onto which we project

memories. All those novelty

keychains and souvenirs from vacation

havens, all those ghostly possessions are memento

mori artifice. I was

young

once.

Kneeling to toads

not god. I wanted butterflies to land on me without having to touch them.

Now I am older and can learn

new trades. I can recognize my capriciousness. How

prodigal my dreams can be.

Like commissioning a stained glass Lepidoptera. I repent

to the flutter of light.

Will you forgive me

for making

altars

that do not decompose? For making an art of by

standing, on those grey mornings,

fixing eyes on the sky and waiting

for my vision to hold a completely

new series of clouds. We all raced

raindrops. We all complain about

light pollution. Did you also

Catch toads in the creek behind your elementary school

even when Miss Caroll and Miss Danielle said it was out of

bounds? Even when Nicole, who kissed

you

in the blanket fort, said touching the toads

would make you

Sick? We still can’t outsmart toads, but maybe

we respect them enough

not to name them all Wilbur or

try to catch them. Maybe now

I can imagine the sky as blanket fort,

and protect it as fiercely as I did that miniature empire I built by the craft closet,

Where I was loved or at least interesting enough

to experiment with. Maybe

she, that little girl,

made me anew. Made me obsessional. I am grown

up girl backstroking in galaxies of potential. The energy current, the plashless butterfly.

Words folded in on their sounds, that glottal stop—The hanging clause

grammars our conversations into silence:

We cannot survive like this.

I’m not here to preach old ironies—read excerpts from the bestselling book on deforestation or shepherd you to the server farms that have been harvesting every view of anthropogenic horrors or, instead, every view of anything else.

I can’t find my voice in all these sublime gardens and birds that are not birds but are hope and grief and poetry.

The creek is so saturated with chemicals, we could develop film in it. Create new memories. I pull tiny machines from the current, knot the debris together until I can pull it over my head and feel loved.

I want butterflies to land on me without having to ruin their wings.

To be armoured in monarchs.

To be still.

I want to apologise to the reincarnations of my late bettas that couldn’t teach me tenderness. I am grieving now: This is the preamble to my apocalypse

and I already know the ending. But is that what matters?

Do we wake up to see the sunset? Dry the river to see the bottom?

Have these metaphors ever made sense?

Am I so blinded by aesthetics?

I don’t know what is happening to me, but it seems almost

familiar.

Hindsight is such a privilege.

I am still here.

I am still

As the clouds. Which is to say,

I am slowly moving

towards a completely new vision.

Admissions From an Adult Daughter

I did not inherit reciprocity. I never gardened but there were always petunias at my front door. My conscience still unconscious, still napping after the commotion of being born blessing And not burden.

My understanding of love still needed the crusts cut off its sandwiches and yet I was not child. Specimen to lawyers, prodigy to teachers, puzzle to people who had the most time to know me. The missing pieces were you.

I learned obligation and isolation. I lived with them for two years after I left home. I still have dreams of them stabbing you with broken bottles. Yes, home. Because the petunias. Because my brother. Because I grieve you every time I think about the world ending, which is often

These days.

Time heals because we are forgetful creatures.

Like the birthmark on my back, I only remember the traces of you when I am looking for them or When my lover points to the spot and says “What is the history of this?” I thought everyone had them.

I bleach my hair.

I stop wearing your clothes.

(I still make myself the scapegoat.)

(I still miss your cooking.)

I do not need my guilt absolved and now your tenderness is so foreign I can only take an afternoon

Before the novelty wears off and again you are consoling me with the promise that things would be

Different. And they are different now, but your hand cannot reach my back. If you washed, I would have dried. If you had spoken, I wouldn’t have screamed. If you apologised,

I would tell you it was unnecessary

Because you already have—it’s in the rent and vet bills, it's in my brother’s report card on the fridge,

It's in the sourdough and zacuscă and every story I tell when I know you’re listening. I don’t think understanding can be reciprocal,

But I’m trying my best

Just like you were.

Decomposing

I am decomposing—

unlacing cobwebs strand by strand,

boiling the salt out of the ocean

One pail

At a time—

And the world ossifies into a shell,

Frequencies

uncoiling

Into a single note

Sung by a phantom wind.

I try to harmonize but my vocal chords hum on different octaves.

On different sides of a debate:

How to best pronounce the word silence.

I am always defeating the purpose of things.

Insignificance is so easy.

Stems of weeds and wildflowers pinched between my fingers,

I coax those frail lives from the ground,

Slipping every root from the soil.

With my fingernail, I slit the throats of dandelions to see hollowness instead of feeling it.

Soon—the trees

Are plucked and scrubbed in my kitchen sink

Until the bark peels

away like dead skin off my hands.

I am taking

ev

er

y thi

n g

apart,

I am finding truth in tree rings and palms and ways of unmaking.

We can only swallow little pieces—

our mouths can only fit so many words.

I am breaking all of the plates in the cupboard

And serving a feast on each of the shards.

I am digesting until my stomach grows acidic teeth and eats itself too.

The pain will confuse the meanings of glut and hunger.

When there is nothing left in the soil, is it a grave?

Am I a Reaper?

Do I pronounce silence by creating absence?

Isn’t

emptiness

deafening?

Luminitza Manea (she/they) is a third-year student at the University of Guelph majoring in English and minoring in Creative Writing and Studio Art. They intend to innovate new forms that combine visual and literary art. As a poet, Luminitza aspires to distill truths (no matter how small or subjective) by decomposing the logic of language and collaging elements such as being present in an uncomfortable world and body, nature’s birth and decay, truth, and the small marvels of the everyday. Luminitza is interested in experimenting with alternative forms of storytelling and translating poetry into physicality, movement, and site-specific experiences.