Issue #31.5 Three Poems by Dolo Diaz
Dead Nun in Voronet
The painted monasteries of Bucovina.
The impossible blue of Voronet, called
Voronet blue. Pitch dark night, the azurite
had faded in the outer walls. Loud ruckus
in the back of the building, at the cemetery.
Nuns chattering, clanking, digging, for vegetables
we thought, a grave as we found out.
The dead nun’s sisters take it in stride and celebrate,
she is with her beloved, or at least on her way.
The monastery is still open, so we go inside.
It is dark, the kids bump something in the aisle,
the dead nun. In her coffin, one last night of prayer.
Before her sisters come for her,
grab her and lower her into the fresh, cool ground.
Not unlike planting a colossal bulb
they’ll never live to see sprout.
Around My Finger, the Ghost of a Squirrel
The low bungalow on Melville St has my wedding ring in there somewhere. I slipped it off my finger, held it in my hand, and it disappeared. It had three tiny diamonds and three tiny sapphires, six my lucky number. Custom-made in an old store in downtown Seattle. The most likely resting place was the planter box in the backyard where I was trying to grow lettuce, where a black squirrel would sit gorging on the tender leaves and leave nothing but the stalks. A squirrel I captured in a metal cage with bait of cheese and carrots. I found him trapped and terrified one day after work and drove him to the hills, breaking the law with wildlife in the trunk, and left him there amongst familiar trees but away from home and kin. That ring was irreplaceable, so I did not try, bought a cheap silver one that turns dark in the pool. When I see it changing color, I think of that squirrel.
Birthdays with Matches
I never gave a damn about my birthday—
good, since Mother forgot sometimes.
Days later she’d pour off the cream
warmed by the woodstove, skimmed daily
from our cow, and bake a rock-bottom cake:
egg-yolk yellow, no frosting, no frills.
I begged for candles; she struck matches,
planted them in the crust and set it down.
No ceremony—smell of sulfur, quick flames,
and all of us leaning in to blow.
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Dolo Diaz is a scientist and poet with roots in Spain, currently residing in California. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Summerset Review, The Woolf, ONE ART, Rogue Agent, among others. Website: dolodiaz.com.
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