Sophia Holtz

ALPHABET

my mouth a lake with a pit in the middle, a lake
becoming a freshwater cave, a cave lined
with marble, full of orange-spotted salamanders,
a cave still frozen over in the spring, too high
in the mountains, the mountains without bipeds,
the bipeds with their own encampment,
—a line of front doors like dominos.
the children there learn the alphabet
—each letter a photograph with a thumb
resting on the lens. what does the photograph
sound like? the children aren’t sure.
they’re sitting in a circle, they’re tying
scarves over their faces. I’m wearing
all of my sweaters. I didn’t mean
to become so domestic. every morning
there are small pools of water
around the apartment and each one
is freezing from the edge inwards.
I keep shaking the polaroid. my mouth
a crater flooded by rain, a glacier
engulfing a forest. everything beneath,
an unnamed fossil. candle stub
that won’t hold light, won’t open
like weeds unfolding in water. 

SOPHIA HOLTZ has published poems in Gulf Coast, The Shallow Ends, and Underblong. She received her BA from Hampshire College and her MFA from NYU, where she was a Goldwater Writing Fellow. Born and raised in New York, she currently lives in Boston.