Thursday 2 February 2012

Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka


Echo—Testing My Heart

I saw gutted buildings. Red River came
above its flood stage, up to twenty-six
fire-tinted feet. I watched my heart beat,
pump blood on the computer screen. My blood
was blue, my blood was red. The surges came
strikingly fast. A spilling lightning stormed
through the valves, opening, closing them.
The mitral valve, untamed galloping horse.                                
The aortic, swishing like a ghost train.                                       
When those two sounds were lost, a gulping frog—
tricuspid valve I heard. Waves, spikes, walls, gates.
Dangers lurking in the sounds, in the waves.
They are over, both news and test. The echo
of valves and fires in red rivers stays.


Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka resides in Maryland, USA. Her poems, written either in English or Polish, have been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the USA, Ireland, and Poland. She is the translator for two bilingual poetry books by Lidia Kosk: niedosyt / reshapings and Słodka woda, słona woda/ Sweet Water, Salt Water. Danuta is an editor of Loch Raven Review.

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