Kiki Petrosino

from De Jure Sanguinis

 

Study Abroad

The night before I leave for Italy
         I lie in the dark, in the same body
I've always carried. I open my mouth
         & draw out the black petals of silence
which have bloomed around my grief. Dante cried
         for Virgil three times as the solar disk
swayed behind a veil of flowers. Some nights
         it's hard to hold the vanished forms I loved.
Roses of water & roses of breath
            hang in the air. No language touches them.

Selva Erronea

Just when I start to think about staying
            the dark spikes of green cypress rise up.
At every crossing, they split the dim sky
            into clauses, interrupting my prayer
with their narrow teeth. Why did I come here
            to this austere edge? Some glint in the trees
must want to keep me out of my right mind.
            When I think of my mother missing me
& how I choose to keep on staying gone—
             Some days, I don't put down a single word.

Mi Presento

I wasn't born with language, only blood.
            The way I always want to leave, like slow
honey. In spring, pink wounds appear inside
            a dogwood blossom just as it opens
its small handful of thunder. I peel back
            memory in cloudy shreds, trying to touch
the thick, clear fluid beneath: womb-water
            suspending light, attenuating sound
or so I hope. What I want to say dips
            so far into the page. I can't say where. 

Also by Kiki Petrosino: "Prophecy," "Confession"

 

Kiki Petrosino is the author of White Blood: a Lyric of Virginia (2020) and three other poetry books, all from Sarabande. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her memoir, Bright, was released from Sarabande in 2022. She is a Professor of Poetry at the University of Virginia where she teaches in the MFA and undergraduate Creative Writing programs. Petrosino is the recipient of a DeWitt Wallace/Reader’s Digest fellowship from MacDowell artist residency, a Pushcart Prize, a Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, the UNT Rilke Prize, & the Spalding Prize, among other honors.

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