Issue 4.2
Summer 2024
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/0bc142_46688bc621cd45c3be2110d28fd14581~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_304,h_269,al_c,lg_1,q_80,enc_auto/0bc142_46688bc621cd45c3be2110d28fd14581~mv2.jpg)
Kim Silva
Reflection
I wrote this poem from the prompt of contemporary paintings. I am inspired by the absurd and surreal. I want to write with a sense of wit and levity. I want to take language and twist it around and wring it out, see what leaks out. I want a sense of play even in subjects of doom and sadness.
The Race
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I’m crawling around looking for my heart. It was in my crocodile-skin purse but it must have fallen out; now it’s nowhere along the jeweled trail from the house to the pumpkin carriage. My purse is so empty it rises to the sun, I must pull it down or float away with it, empty-hearted. Why should I suffer like this, my knees ache; there’s mud on my dress. When I stand I’m dizzy and alone; I see the same old things—Mother massaging the carriage driver, the swans ironing the manmade pond, the ivy devouring the mansion—when I look down I see grasshopper, stones, winged fly, frog. The population of those that live at one’s feet. And all they see is from that level. I don’t know what they know, they terrify me, and then I see it; my heart is there. A tiny heart, like a blind frog. And it’s white and thin. And leaps away from me. It takes its place in the company of crumbs and flies and stones. But before it disappears, I catch it. I cup it in my hands before swallowing it whole. It rides my breast with its ragged ticking.
Kim Silva lives in Rhode Island with her musician husband and their dog, Zelda. She loves nature and is vegan for the animals. Writing poetry is a way to add color and playfulness with a societal undertone to her world. Her website is kimsalinassilva.com.
Kim's Book Recommendations
How to Write by Gertrude Stein
Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form by Matthea Harvey
The Tormented Mirror by Russell Edson
I Am Pig by Kim Hyesoon
The World Doesn’t End by Charles Simic