Sister of the Heath by Chell Navarro

Chell Navarro is a poet, zine maker and waitress. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Media Arts from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Navarro founded Savage Torpor Poetry and Press (2018.) She lives in Kansas City, Mo with her beloved familiars: dogs Patchouli and Alice, and Sappho the cat.


Solitude Tastes Like Opium
                                      --Adam Zagajewski
 
cloved in waiting       
a forbidden blue      
rose to cup a bite of poppies
 
tears into iron sleep
awakes such velvet ardor 
midnight: a den with no moon             
 
my Assyrian dream
floats on trails of smoke    
so lucid quite what flying must be
 
fluent myrrhtars exquisite      
flowering Asia 
lulls me towards alone
 
I arrive home & taste some
spoonful of another self 
& laud the bitter bouquet
 
 
Nexus of a Mythomaniac
--from Autoportrait by Edouard Levé
Solitude keeps me consistent. Is that lie really true? 
Go see if I’m over there. 
 
I feel like an impostor whose obscene
novelty disgusts me.  My amorous states
 
bring two types of betrayal, simultaneous
lies.  I would like to have myself hypnotized.
 
When I look out a window I feel no nostalgia
for childhood or Bach or a spring snow storm. 
 
I cannot perceive the delay in mirrors 
or the last time it was yesterday.
 
The last time it was yesterday,
I could not perceive a delay in mirrors
 
or my childhood, or Bach, or a spring snow storm.
And when I close the window, I feel no nostalgia.
 
No longing to lie. I like myself hypnotized.
Betrayal brings two types of betrayal.
 
Simultaneous novelty disgusts me.
My amorous states, like an imposter,
 
obscene. Go see if I’m over there. Solitude
is persistent. Constantly my lies ring true.