LUISA MURADYAN TANNAHILL

The Red Forest, Рыжий лес


Wolf spider teach me to be invisible

that I may pray teeth first

mouth full of flies. The forest body

overgrown with wild tomatoes

nuclear garden, electric mausoleum.

My mother in her pregnancy did not know

that I had sprouted a tail and two

extra fingers or needles that thread

golden webs. This forest full

of unclaimed scarves and sick

stories that thousands of years later

will be called fables. When Ivan exploded

his nuclear body the heroine gave birth

to the many limbs of time. Religion I return,

wolf spider let me in.



207  The Paris-American

Luisa Muradyan Tannahill is originally from the Ukraine and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Houston. She is also the Editor of Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts and a 2016 Donald Barthelme Poetry Prize recipient. Previous work has appeared in West Branch, The Los Angeles Review, Blackbird, Rattle, Ninth Letter, and PANK among others. 

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  Upcoming poet:
  
  Kaveh Akbar