Alexandra Pasian is a poet, freelance writer, and professor. She is the author of the forthcoming chapbook “Work until you find resistance” (Junction Books, 2018), and her poems have appeared in Arc, Cosmonauts Avenue, Electronic Encyclopedia of Experimental Literature, and The Fiddlehead. She lives with her partner and two children in Montreal, Canada.
author photo: Isabel Pasian-Rozahegy
from the margins seem as good a place as any
I’ve made a crude ship
with the bones and skin
of animals. Unaccustomed
as I am to such tasks, it is
the smell that overwhelms
me; I try to comfort myself
with puppet shows of organs.
But the hearts refuse to play
a fainting ingénue, won’t be
typecast, they proclaim. Let it fall
instead to the spleens! And I’ll be
swayed, agree before setting sail
for the middle of some
greater narrative, slow moving
in its own way. The author unknown
but assuring. A minor epic, I am told.