Elena Karina Byrne

Longing

 A restrained space between rocks

in the dream meant you stopped breathing in the dream.

Weed unraveling accidents of nature, human & inhuman:

Chips of sky ice-fell once

into the bird feeder and slowly domesticated the light, 

just before dawn.

There’s a ghost argument of silence (didn’t you know?) gathering 

the mind every morning, 

already spoken for.

Longing is too many wings and not enough air.

Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry recipient, Elena Karina Byrne's work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Los Angeles Review of Books, BOMB, and Poetry Daily, Plume, Volt, and elsewhere. Her fifth poetry collection If This Makes You Nervous coincides with her writing screenplays and completing her collection of "interrupted" essays, Voyeur Hour.