Natalie Korman is a poet and writer. Heliotropics is her first chapbook. Natalie's poetry has appeared in 99 Pine Street, Mouse Tales Press, Echoes, Quarto, among others. An alumna of Barnard College, Natalie is the 2012 first-place winner of the college's Prescott Prize for Prose Writing. She is inspired by music, history, and human beings' tenuous relationship with the natural world. Born in New York City and raised in the Hudson Valley, she now resides in the Bay Area with her husband. nataliekorman.com
Warp Bark Woof
This is the simple one.
What is your presence?
It is hexagonal. It is rich with photons.
It is reminiscent of interborough travel.
I did not notice the edge
had dug into my skin.
It left a precious shadowy mark.
What the fuck.
You are a black slash down firm paper,
watery paint confidently brushed.
You are undercut
with a vein of silver.
Sycorax left you,
but you have cracked and sanctified
the rock, vacuumed the wire through.
The boroughs burn with your electrons.
You smell of the island city.
It is heliotropic. It is rich with
photosynthesis.
It is made of stamen and bird claw,
pollen carrier and brush of moth—
you are the deliberate thread, the jagged edge,
the blues night leaf unraveling.