SYLVIE BAUMGARTEL, FEATURED IN THE NEW OCEAN STATE REVIEW

Death and the Maiden

I’m not done with you, get back here.
As I try to escape
Up the Indiana stairs.

I am not a pedophile, he screamed at
Me, over and over.
Spitting in my face.
But I hadn’t accused him of that.

But in bed. I am a child.
My skinny body,
Without breasts yet.

He teaches me to fuck
And this excites us
Both beyond repair.

The feet are earth
And transform
Fear into power.
The legs are fire
And transform anger
Into power.
The belly is water and
Transforms
Pain into power.
The torso is light.

Dark teachers
Animate God in us.

My innocence is a galaxy
Of pink and black
Where he is reborn and drowns.

Sylvie Baumgartel is the author of Song of Songs (FSG, 2019), her debut book of poems. Her second book of poetry, Pink, came out in 2021 (FSG). Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Financial Times, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, Subtropics, Raritan, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, The Virginia Quarterly Review, the PEN Poetry Series, The Unprofessionals: New American Writing from The Paris Review, and elsewhere.