MARINA GIPPS Poems

Not sure what it means to be an American anymore.
My two older sisters, naturalized as my parents are.
Their names engraved on an Ellis Island wall
Where immigrants bled from past atrocities.
...

Will draw freehand
The infinite universe
Of this one continuous
Motion where lifting
...

Two sides of my brain open up into arguing.
One wishes to save, the other- to watch die.
You are speaking to me in closed monologues.
...

With my last rite of passage,
catching you midflight,
a sad sorcery.
...

Ants on the ground travel to a place
Where I sit, ash, ash some more
Again
Where I sit, ash, ash some more
...

It climaxes and goes nowhere
but into the thin air.

And I think the air keeps it,
...

In the black corner,
so many nights I went
waking to your side.
...

Late night, lone hours.
A clock and its arms wave,
recur as stain.
You are still here,
...

The sheen of check-board linoleum...
I glide to an abandoned barstool,
burgundy vinyl, the seat still warm.
...

Tomorrow I clean my room.
Ripped up papers-
A river someday where I might unearth
A new love, rediscovering a new poem.
...