Romana Iorga

The Shape of Her Body in the Snow

Do I exist if I doubt?

How do my newly-shaped limbs
come into being?

I must be here, anchored
in the movement
of falling snow.
Doubts

float over my liquid
self
curdling it into a thought—
a glimpse

of what I may become.

I hear his steps in the house
filling the air
with random
anger.

I think up lovers,
white beasts
shedding their hair

on the black earth.

exhumation

for Willow, the pointer-setter

who are you digging for sweetheart?
what scrap
of your life
have you stashed
in the ground? whose
memories
have replenished
the soil? how I wish
it were mine this
single-minded
joy
for digging my sole
purpose
hinging on finding
what I can only sense
is there
something
clean as a bone
sufficient unto itself
enough
to feed someone’s hunger