Nocturne
RUNNER UP FOR THE 2021 PINK POETRY PRIZE
“Reimaging the poetic page as a visual canvas can be a complicated heart-to-heart for both poet and audience, but “Nocturne” is an example of how visual narrative can fortify the lyric while leaving room for all of the things usually unsaid. This poem is simultaneously powerful and delicate, as if removing one of the lineated rays might cause the whole poetic sun to falter.”
Alt-text, to be read in any order:
I wake in a pain without place.
A functional problem, my doctor said, though I heard her say, You can stand it.
No longer a singular injury: not my left lower back, not my knee-creaks.
We hide our pain from other women; we teach each other how.
At my hip, my cat gathers all of her paws, tail on the bridge of her nose, tucked in for the long dark.
Pain of motion, pain of stillness, pain of separation.
Last month E’s aunt fell and didn’t tell anyone.
Soon, the harvest will hunch my shoulders.
In these wild hips I’ll stand and pound the weeping cabbage into submergence.
My mother doesn’t trust my brine and boils hers instead.
I won’t choose to bring a child into this lifetime.
About the author
Rachel Edelman is a Jewish poet raised in Memphis, Tennessee. A finalist for the 2020 National Poetry Series, she has published work in The Threepenny Review, Wildness, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington and a BA in English and geology from Amherst College. She teaches high school English in Seattle.