Flower-bordered river
where I fillet the hyacinths,
 
a russian doll of places
posing as one place.
 
Halogen me
at a horse show in Florida
 
while another juliennes
olives for appetizers.
 
A doll slipped in another
till all dolls are dull:
 
versions of me
with whistles for lips
 
reciting asterisks
in the periodic table.
 
Collage of the unconscious:
white flowers, lost teeth,
 
scarecrow with
an aureole of straw,
 
basilica for everyone’s
best dresses.
 
I visit the public
museum of clouds,
 
lithographs of sky
posing as space.
 
Layers make monsters
as shows the snapdragon.
 
Memory, you crooked thing
I do to the page.
 
###
 
Maya Catherine Popa is a book reviewer for Publisher’s Weekly. Her writing appears in Tin House, Kenyon Review, Poetry London, DIAGRAM, PN Review, and Narrative Magazine. She was the Editorial Raab Fellow at Poets & Writers from 2013-2014, and literary editor of All Hollow Magazine.
 
Her poem, “The Color Wheel Has Been Cancelled,” is forthcoming in John LeCarre (TLR, Winter 2015).
 
“Palimpsest” first appeared in Colorado Review in Spring 2014.