Annie Przypyszny
—
Taking the Portrait
My body lowered across the carpet,
she creaked the door into just the right
position. Obsessed with contrast, she halved me
with shade, and I dangled on the edge
of some lovely, fatal height. She crouched
down, brushing the straps of my dress off
my shoulders: an illusion of bareness.
The Nikon hovered above
my neck, my jaw, inspecting
each part in isolation before pulling
back to snap the portrait, the flash
like a blade in the evening
sun. Once she developed the prints
she displayed them in front of me, admiring
any bone that stretched my skin,
lauding how sharp the shadow cut.
Subglacial
The ice cracked,
I dropped. My love
dove to save me.
The surface froze
over quick, trapped
us with the silver-
gold fish. And
what? We built
a home of sunken
branches, lolling
pond weeds, our days
lit by the filtered
sun, mist-soft as
shower steam. We
settled like silt in
our water-silk world,
our winter’s privacy.
Every kiss between
us formed a pearl,
a glad, white flame.
Those we once knew
stood above the
ice, watched as we
lived. They cried
for how cold
we must be.
Annie Przypyszny is a poet from Washington, DC pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Maryland. She is an Assistant Editor for Grace and Gravity and has poems published or forthcoming in The Northern Virginia Review, Jet Fuel Review, Watershed Review, The Healing Muse, North Dakota Quarterly, Tupelo Quarterly, Ponder Review, SWWIM, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, SoFloPoJo, and others.
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