Ken Price, “View from Window, Venice” (1992), ink on paper at Matthew Marks Gallery at Frieze Los Angeles 2019 (photo by Elisa Wouk Almino/Hyperallergic)
sonnet: blitshteyn
i’ve already staked my fate to my name
like a fool in dual languages, dura,
дура, like a duel in foul languages,
сукa, a bitch, the first thing they teach you
door in four languages, all of them closed
drool in foal languages, all of then nay
dour in fuel languages, all of them lit
droll in full languages, all of them laid
the first thing they teach you, блядь, like a whore,
blyat, like a splatter, blat, like a bullet,
blit, like a little, shteyn, like a lot, stain,
like it matters, stone, as in not, then n.
sonnet: mutter
bitte, this city, better to see you
with, better for seething, bitte, and please
remember it pleasing, betting on you
and won, my city, my gott, and stippled
with sun splattered leaves, better to leave you
seeming to love me, better to seek you
out of the rubble of my leben, love,
bitter, liebe, i left my mutter, mum,
her mother, her name was libbe, i moved
to citty, to set my grieving aside,
and bitte, behold, unbidden, i left
its light in my heart, good riddance citte
my citte a citte bitte unlit
like a match spit on, unsmitten, unmet
after all, unfall, unbitten apple
* * *
Marina Blitshteyn is the author of Two Hunters (Argos Books, 2019), supported with a CLMP Face-Out grant. Prior chapbooks include Russian for Lovers (Argos Books, 2011), Nothing Personal (Bone Bouquet Books, 2015), $kill$ (dancing girl press, 2016), and Sheet Music (Sunnyoutside Press, 2018). She teaches composition and hybrid forms at Fordham, Parsons, and New York University.
Yessssss 🔥🔥🔥