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The Missouri Review

Poem of the Week | January 05, 2015

Taisia Kitaiskaia: "Saturday Evening"

To usher in the new year, we offer you a love poem by Taisia Kitaiskaia this week. Kitaiskaia was born in Russia and raised in America. Her poems and translations have been published or are forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Phantom Limb, Smoking Glue Gun, Narrative Magazine, Poetry International, and others. Marketing director of Bat City Review and the medium of the advice column Ask Baba Yaga, she is currently an MFA candidate at the James A. Michener Center for Writers.
 
Author’s note:

I got out of bed in the middle of the night to write this poem; the rain and the tenderness I felt for my sleeping fiancé made me restless. I’d been writing pretty wild, loud, grotesque poems for a good year, so this summer I wanted to tone it down a bit—get quieter, more vulnerable. Love aside, I also wanted to talk about the giants that stroll the creek beds at night. They’re definitely out there.

 

Saturday Evening

 

It’s itching out, my feet are raining.
My Magellan sank into the soil long ago, cracked the earth’s egg.
I am a ferocious brood, my milk has fed an army.
Only my arrogance can save me, it gleams in the dark.
Waking nightly I am too large for my house.
There are giants in the dry creek, swinging
their arms as they stroll, muscles taut with purpose.
They have already won the earth, and no one knows.
I want to tell everyone,
wake you up,
your torso splitting with kitchen light,
your glasses crooked, lens fractured,
hot milk burning your throat.
I love you, it is very clear.
I’ll follow you, we’ll keep chasing each other.
The call in the dark and the call.
Labyrinths rising and thickening,
we can demolish them later.
And always peace in the ancient tile
house. My husband, you gold
round locket with no hinge,
no inside, just the whole.

 

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