Demarcation

Demarcation Alexandra Burack (bio) Third grade, beside the water fountain.A boy kissed mefor the first time, then spat uglygirls smell like old sandwiches.Lucky to have learnedthat certain slant of love,the metal scent of doing without. High school graduation, basement couch.A girl kissed mefor the first time, then exhaledme like the spittled sootfrom an enemy's cigarette.Lucky to have crushed the searof pleasure, a chrysalis under my boot. I live alone in the woods where smokeslips between pines, trails the syntax of rocksand stumps. Think about what can be told,that we ask words to hold so much shadow.The lake is a green mirror that teemswith clouds. Scanning the far shore,I see a fish leap into a brushstroke of sun,then return to what it knowsthe others have made without solitude. [End Page 625] Alexandra Burack Alexandra Burack is the author of On the Verge (Plinth Books). She was founding editor of Lumina and Invert and currently serves as a poetry reader for the Los Angeles Review. She is the recipient of grants from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts as well as from the Ludwig Vogelstein and Haymarket Foundations. She teaches creative writing at Chandler-Gilbert Community College. Copyright © 2023 The University of the South