Leah Umansky

Leah Umansky
 
The Love Orphans
 
This is a galactic train of scattered drift. Alone in the flickers. A left galaxy. I haven’t found the cosmic. This is a scrofulous mess: light should connect to light. We are filled with so much space; so much willing-mash; and so much that is a faint wreck. I want something flung-over. I want some other singular star. Whatever is bright. Whatever is brighter-still.

Cluster around me.

In this city, we are a string of little pegs in the night. I emit light. [nothing] I halo what I love for others [nothing] I am stumped. [still, nothing] There are other possibilities. Yes, there are other solo-slingers, but I want bigger. I want to pull a planet into my swing, maybe a moon. In this harbor, in this void of space, I can go the distance. I will not go dim. If light seeps from my fingers, let it connect to a distant starry-depot or a rocketship only I know the code for.
 
I will construct my own team: the love orphans. If collisions, combustions, or just mere fuses are the worry of others, I will go rogue.
 
 
 
Leah Umansky is a poet, collagist and teacher in New York City. She is the author of the Mad-Men inspired chapbook, Don Dreams and I Dream and the full-length collection Domestic Uncertainties. She is also the curator and host of the COUPLET Reading Series. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such places as POETRY, Thrush Poetry Journal, POSIT, Barrow Street and MAGMA. Her Game of Thrones inspired poems have recently been translated into Norwegian by Beijing Trondheim. More at: leahumansky.com.