Euforia Abstracta en la ciudad Invisible by Vivian Calderon Bogoslavsky
Ghazal for New York City
Erika Gill
After Adrienne Rich
I haven’t finished mourning the future I believed we were constructing
when your ghost follows me through the city streets and subway lines
upward stare at the pinkish paint flaking from the metal beam overhead
the overgrown verdancy of the vines along the station wall fills me
in Central Park I melt, slowly by stages, into a frozen strawberry lemonade
outside of Strawberry fields a sudden void scoops my soul into concavity
I am the black ant crawling in the white hibiscus flower in Prospect Park
I am the fat rat crawling in the cement cracks in the Park Slope station
smoking in the West Village I spot the crepe place I traveled to 10 years ago
right across the street from the bar where a man said a slur to my face
Have I become lost willingly in the concrete jungle where dreams are made?
Empty myself, my last cigarette, my patience as the world’s best wing man
“It’s not about being feminine, it’s about being a dirty little bitch,” they say
the chord it strikes resonates through the following weeks, wards you away
I claim this city for myself, and exorcise you from all that remains sordid
in my heart full of dirt, sewage, garbage and exhaust, but most of all, hope.
Erika Gill (they/them) lives on unceded Tséstho’e (Cheyenne), Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, hinono’eino’ biito’owu’ (Arapaho), and Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute) land in Denver. Erika is Editor in Chief of Alternative Milk Magazine. Their poetry appears in Rigorous, MORIA, beestung, and others. Their debut collection of poetry, Lone Yellow Flower, is available now from Querencia Press. Socials: @invariablyso Website: erikagill.com
Vivian Calderón Bogoslavsky is a Colombia native. She holds a bachelors in anthropology with a minor in history and a postgraduate degree in Journalism from Universidad of Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia. She has studied art for over 13 years with a well known Argentinian art master, as well as studies in Florence, Italy, and Fine Arts & Design in USA. She was in Madrid Spain for one year painting and having art exhibitions and today she is in Colombia exploring her art. Vivian has shown her work in both individual and collective shows in Colombia, the United States, and Spain. She has been published in various books, magazines, and webpages, and has received multiple awards.