Poem

Ana Bozicevic-Bowling

CITTADINO IN CAMPAGNA

The green by itself didn't mean anything;
it needed shapes to inform it.

The long hope of the long hill—
the incline spoke, the hill didn't.

On the burnt dog-grass, at the foot of the V tree
its shadow drew an X. —Me, a denominator?

—No, you were the line in tree's fraction:
one present point where bird-life in the crown

divided by death on the grass, equaled a soul…
The hill curved, now in starlight.

There was a sensation of falling. And how the hill changed.
—& the length of hope? —Didn't. Only the soul—

The soul was painted over and over, like an outlet.

Ana Bozicevic-Bowling

Ana Bozicevic-Bowling was born in Zagreb, Croatia in 1977. In 1997, she moved to New York City and began to write in English. Her poems and translations can be found in 6x6, The Cortland Review, LIT, The New York Quarterly, Redivider, Three Candles and other journals. She co-edits RealPoetik, an online poetry magazine, studies at Hunter College and works at PEN American Center. Her chapbook Morning News is available from Kitchen Press.

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