Nicole Steinberg is an editor-at-large of LIT and the founder and curator of Earshot, a NYC reading series dedicated to emerging writers. Her writing appears in publications such as BOMB, No Tell Motel, Eleven Eleven, Barrow Street and Barrelhouse. She is the editor of a literary anthology, Forgotten Borough: Writers Come to Terms with Queens, to be published by SUNY Press in 2011. She hails from Queens, NY and currently lives in Philadelphia.
Meiji Shrine
I want to make a wish but you’re watching
the girl twirling in the peach
dress, the silk circling her hips like cake
frosting puckered by the steadiest
hand, completely out of place amongst the gravel
voiced tourists, hands dappled
palettes of brass and nickel, our secret yen
for the green-sweet air heralded as sleeping spirit,
turning the tiers of that ruffled pagoda
with breath that delivers a prayer if we wait.