Elmira Elvazova

THE POSSIBILITY OF A BEAUTIFUL DEATH

the mind brightens
as the soft light
touches down
it finds me
in the places
I am reticent
I hesitate
to tell you
the flowers
on the window ledge
are the most
beautiful
things in life
when I am alone
the sound
of cathedral bells
opens my eyes
to the light
when you can’t
find me
in the disambiguating day
I’m in the foxgloves
at the mouth
of the river
the predetermined clouds
orbiting my solitude
why is every face
like a landscape?
and why is the wind
always revising itself
across the pasture?
we agree the color
of the grass
is reminiscent
of a painterly
yellow a yellow
adjacent to suffering
someone famous
painted the grass
once then lost
all hope but
I am still arriving
when the light
touches
the stones
I feel the world
expanding
I was walking uphill
in a sea of fog
I was praising
the disappearing world
later, you said
climbing into the fog
would feel like
gradually
going blind
and though it
terrified you
you understood
the appeal
it held to others
it was a
beautiful
sentiment
I still recollect
I tried speaking
of the possibility
of a beautiful death
but then the wind
revised
all of my words
then my thoughts
disassembled
in the wind

ELMIRA ELVAZOVA received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts Program for Poets & Writers. Her debut chapbook, I Could Go On Like This Forever, was recently published by Bottlecap Press. A native of New York City, she resides in Scotland and is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh.