Cx72 Poetry: Ivanna Baranova
December 27, 2021

postal

i’m fine, cleaning spilled water off your house 

change of address   but my mail stays 
spread across the country 

it’s constellatory practice, my far star becoming far 

an errant clause deciphers the harmonics of
our sighs the minutes erase their numbers 

like a cherished neighbor, i create the we by smiling 

middle of the night   when love’s first root concusses
i dry your sweat soaked shirt on the doors of my
eyes

angel names me for lunatic

in the new garden 
jade stadiums cut the collar 
of breathing’s persistent torment 

to unearth the bloom 
of our living schemes and sun 
light drinks my eyes right out of me 

i was a thrashed plea eased by self-forgetting
emblazoned by the obdurate spirit of demolished luck 

the heat of ripe speech   half right 
my heart reprises the cameo 
of your cute, sort of 
acceptable god 

who comes as mist and splitting onset 
cradling speed, dispensing the psycho-perfect theme

revival devours our strife with ease

joan (untitled) 

morale is actually a myth 

like cooperative interference deters
terror, renders a decision 
fractal   superstitious 

is this the final straits of desperation 

every rational option 
tried and failed 

achievement raids and decimates even
wonder 
in my father’s garden 

no prolific faction 
or brief and secondary visions 

i was divine three times 
without the help 
of others 

unmoved except for their own suffering
or the bizarre coincidence 
of conditional grace

static
after Simone de Beauvoir 

exit wandering, sole 
slipping beyond the shoe 

genuine levitation and storied vision
cuts a loss more quiet than sky 

lone stars blue for jacaranda 
hauling turnpike devotion, diaphanous glitch

one does not offer an ethics to a god

*

Ivanna Baranova is a poet and the author of CONFIRMATION BIAS (Metatron Press). She lives in Los Angeles and helps with communications at The Poetry Project.