Poetry

Loren’s Gaze

“Loren, Flower” by Alan W. Bean
Polaroid Transfer

from a photograph

White rose in your pulled back hair,
a song on your mind
of memories unraveled like a ball
of yarn, its tip slid
in the burrows of the past.
Nothing lasts but time
without you, without me.
Yet, your gaze harbors
everything that’s passed.

Your eyes open to the glow that lands
on your forehead caressed by a strand
of hair. The edge of your nose nudges
into the light, but the nostrils draw
in the unknown. Your cheek bones trace
the line between bright and dark.
Your lips pressed against one another
as sides of an envelope that holds
what’s been told for now.

Pavlina Gatikova lives in southeastern Massachusetts with her husband. She is originally from the Czech Republic where she completed her Masters Degree in English and French as Foreign Languages. She has taught English to adult immigrants. Since 2007, she has been working as an ESL teacher in the public schools. She had a poem published in the Ekphrastic Review and another poem is forthcoming in the Rat’s Ass Review’s summer issue.