Art Ticker

Emily Frisella

I Reach for the Thesaurus

            looking for a gentler metaphor,
            something to describe

the action or the fact of breaking
up;

            nothing went wrong

            instead, we
            slowly stopped
            saying certain things

            disruption, separation into
parts, disintegration (lit. and
fig.);

            slowly,
            you and I
            stopped

             e.g. decay of animal
functions;
            change from fine or
settled weather, or from frost;

            I think about tundra,
            the arctic circle,
            the tireless work of survival.

            It is so cold there,
            I once read,
            tanned leather freezes overnight.
            In summer, fur will rot.

            The people who lived there sewed
            new clothes each year,
            beautiful clothes
            with tiny embroidered stitches.

            Now the clothes
            live in museums.

dispersal or dissolution of a
meeting, company, society, or
system

            I try this:

slowly
we disperse

the system
that was us

dissolves

Emily Frisella, a recent graduate of Wellesley College, is a London-based freelance writer, editor, and educational consultant. She writes both poetry and nonfiction, and takes a special interest in the intersections of literature, pop culture, history, and politics. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Foundry, Pedestal Magazine, The Adroit Journal, 30 N, The Establishment, GOOD, Cicada, The Wellesley Review, and Oxford University’s The Isis Magazine She blogs sporadically at www.untimelycriticism.com.




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