Sign Inventory Week 5 - Erika Meitner's "Absence"

Absence


grows the heart
open:  balloon surgery

inflated artery
distended implant

stunning single breast
condom gone awry & batted

around health class
elastic vase bypass

cloud seed, puffed
milkweed pod (your

shivering lung-
            fuls, exhausted lips).

This magician blows
party knots, twists

temptation:  squeeze
the yellow snapdragon

pop the pretty
               cherry then

plastic gunshot
(clown-spit)

snapped bombshell
(monster-sweat)

wound unlocked
wound unfastened
wound ajar
            this fragile
container

your body (rubber)
a gaping vessel
             of breath.

you sharded light,
you shoebox camera,
you pin-prick;

            this hushed leak
from mouth
          to mouth
                     to mouth.



This poem is really neat and also pairs nicely, I think, with Tim's calisthenic exercise about synesthesia.
Here are some of the "building blocks" I see in the poem.

• Short stanzas, generally 2 lines until the end which is 4 lines.
• Very lyrical in nature, in my opinion, one of the most lyrical poems by Meitner.
• Not much regard for syntactical structure; broken up thoughts.
• Half rhyming
• Title reads as the first word in the poem.
• No syllabic format
• 3 Sentences, 37 lines
• Short alliterations - i.e. "pop the pretty"
• Repetition at the end using "Wound" with a word that is a synonym (Unlocked, unfastened, ajar)