aggieANGELOUS

In loving memory of the inclusivity and resilience of Maya Angelou

Unsigned

By Marina Brown

I climbed four

floors of frozen stairs

last January

to leave

a vase of roses

too close outside

your iron door.

I am still walking

away

not knowing

if your hands

shook lifting

them in

or bled

picking up wet glass

and red petals.

For Paul Breslin

By Marina Brown

 at the reading, Mr. Breslin mentions

the particular ironies of his failures

in vision / childhood roadblocks.

‘the first job of a poet,’ he says,

‘is to see,’ and I think of feeling

my way down the dark stairs of

an old wine cellar, the cool wall

steadying my slipping vertigo.

my father once restrained

a thrashing alcoholic,

who coughed an infection

into his right eye. the surgery

was by the ocean, and put to

use the cornea of a corpse.

today, his eyes are two

slightly different shades of blue,

but he still flies, and writes.

  this afternoon, a friend remarked at my

carelessness: my hips faced the world

in soft black cotton, only a few steps

from the window, blinds open and drawn

a quarter way up. I said they can’t see

us in here – that they’re never looking,

but she was unfazed and half-closed

her eyes. her body pleaded with

the tall white door-frame as she said

it’s so easy for us, from behind these

windows, to see them. it’s crystal clear.

  because I am aggravated by blank whiteness,

I have peppered my new apartment with pushpins,

lights and art and jewelry. but I scarcely notice

any maps or flower-bouquets when I shut the door

behind me in the evenings. I want to prove you

wrong, Mr. Breslin, and ask for your prescriptions,

and find for you all the night-blind poets, and explain

to you how it is, that I can no longer feel the things I see.

My name is Marina Brown and I’m a fourth-year international relations and Russian double major. I am a member of Phi Sigma Pi fraternity and Editor-in-Chief of Her Campus online magazine at UC Davis. I was born in Kharkov, Ukraine and raised in Stockton, California. I love reading and writing, exploring big cities, electronic and indie music, being outdoors, drinking tea, making new friends and hanging out with my cat.

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