SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Twelve
EVA SKRANDE
Lace
To separate the soul
from the body,
is an undressing: first
skirt, then blouse
and slip,
then
the final lace
of arms, etcetera, before
the soul comes into view.
It takes a certain willingness
to be like the rose
in the garden, shedding its petals
to be vulnerable, to forego
the dishes and mopping,
to make room in a bed
where you are
and are not alone
because the last petal of the last rose
has come in through the window
to lie alongside you,
to teach you to discard your own
lace of petals
for the moment the horse appears,
to see the horse grazing,
in love with pasture, grass,
and the naked wind.
Opposites
There's the beauty, of course, of one and negative one,
moon and negative moon, a mountain
and the good feet of the righteous valley
below it. Even the dark cave
of the mouth has its own flicker of rose—
even the darkness has its own speck
of candle. There's the round prayer of Ferris
wheels, versus the straight breath of ladders
the soft prayer of a child kneeling next to bed
against the loud cry of the repentant thief
which is beautiful enough to make the unbelieving
coat on the clothes rack fall to its knees,
because that flock of birds flying out of sight in the sky
will always be visible to someone, somewhere.
Eva Skrande grew up in Cuba and Miami, Florida, and now lives in Texas. She is the author of Bone Argot (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019) and My Mother's Cuba (River City Publishing, 2010). Her poems have appeared in Agni, American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, Prism International, Alaska Quarterly, SurVision, etc.
