Bruised magnolias, damaged street signs,
a fractured spinal cord.  There is too much
in this world already.  In a pile,

a picture of one foggy day on the pier
where I hung my shoes from a post and walked
barefoot.  Night, unflappable and full of sorrow.

Lamps stuttered into their oily glow.
A mom and her daughter argued over where
to put their furniture, the worth of an isosceles

triangle, what the girl would study in school.
I walked past and hoped that no fault line
would slip between them.  Termites

eat their way through my attic.
Ghost limbs pace the length of this room.
There is too much in this world already.

*

Stephanie Kartalopoulos completed her PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Missouri, where she was 2008-2012 Creative Writing Fellow in Poetry. Her poems and translations of 20th Century Greek poet Yannis Ritsos are forthcoming and appear in a variety of journals that include [PANK], Thrush Poetry Journal, Barn Owl Review, Sou’wester, Pebble Lake Review, 32 Poems, Phoebe, and Harpur Palate. Stephanie is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Poetry at Kansas State University.