{"id":32530,"date":"2024-04-02T10:49:36","date_gmt":"2024-04-02T08:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=32530"},"modified":"2025-09-10T12:15:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T10:15:42","slug":"two-poems-from-alina-stefanescu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/two-poems-from-alina-stefanescu\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems from Alina Stefanescu"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>Romanian American poet Alina Stefanescu describes her new book <em>Dor<\/em> and present the poems &#8220;Playing Possum&#8221; and &#8220;My Polish Child.&#8221; As Emily Holland writes, &#8220;<em>DOR\u00a0<\/em>is a compendium of desire, displacement, longing, and belonging. While the word &#8216;dor&#8217; itself &#8216;serves as a bridge which creates its own territory from fusion,&#8217; here Stefanescu\u2019s words do their own act of bridging the spaces between the body and language.&#8221;<\/h5>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\"ose-vimeo ose-uid-f16c8929d7d745f47f6a458771465fac ose-embedpress-responsive\" style=\"width:600px; height:550px; max-height:550px; max-width:100%; display:inline-block;\" data-embed-type=\"Vimeo\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" title=\"Poet Alina Stefanescu\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/929787015?dnt=0&amp;app_id=122963&title=0&color=00ADEF&byline=0&portrait=0&autoplay=0&loop=0&autopause=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"550\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"encrypted-media;accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;gyroscope;picture-in-picture fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_32559\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32559\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wanderingaenguspress.com\/dor.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-32559 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dor-cover-Alina-Stefanescu-1.jpg\" alt=\"Dor is published by Wandering Aegus Press\" width=\"600\" height=\"903\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dor-cover-Alina-Stefanescu-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dor-cover-Alina-Stefanescu-1-199x300.jpg 199w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-32559\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Dor<\/em> is published by <a href=\"https:\/\/wanderingaenguspress.com\/dor.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wandering Aegus Press<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<hr \/>\n<h4>Alina Stefanescu<\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">Playing Possum<\/h4>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\"><em>This<\/em> <em>is<\/em> <em>my<\/em> <em>mother,<\/em> <em>newly-dead<\/em>, Mom says. <em>She<\/em> <em>died<\/em> <em>without<\/em> <em>su\ufb00ering.<\/em><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">I fondle the photo of my maternal grandma playing possum.<br \/>\nA dead possum in a ditch is called <em>roadkill<\/em>.<br \/>\nA possum who&#8217;s just playing is not yet <em>carcass.<br \/>\n<\/em>The women in my family will play anything to make you wonder.<br \/>\nJust to see what you\u2019d say about us then.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">The woman in the photo is my namesake.<br \/>\nThe photo taken by the man she met and married in med school.<br \/>\nIt was he who administered the \ufb01nal morphine injection<br \/>\nwhen breast cancer claimed her brain. He did this<br \/>\nwithout telling their daughters. He consulted none, invited<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">none into the living room of the Transylvanian cottage<br \/>\nhe drafted and built by hand. It was her green dream-house.<br \/>\nHe did it because she wanted to remain herself.<br \/>\nShe made him <em>promise<\/em>. She made him promise again.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 120px;\">She said <em>if you love me<\/em>\u2026.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">He signed her request with a blue fountain pen<br \/>\nfrom Czechoslovakia. The contract hid among papers, letters,<br \/>\nphotos he preserved, images of her naked breasts, arms raised<br \/>\nabove her head, his <em>Alina<\/em>\u2014winsome, hungry, amorous,<br \/>\nand \ufb01nally, \ufb01nally, faceless\u00a0 two gray hands<br \/>\nlocked in languor over her chest. An orthodox cross<br \/>\nlaid over v-shaped limbs, a \ufb02ock of birds on their way to the Danube.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 120px;\"><em>I am an atheist now, <\/em>he announced<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">But no one believed. None believed a man who hated god so faithfully<br \/>\ncould ever come to disbelieve Himself. This was Ceausescu&#8217;s Romania.<br \/>\nThe dictator ruled from posters with iron \ufb01sts. I know hate and<br \/>\nhope are kindred, knit through our palms. And these lines<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 120px;\">in my hand: a silenced mutation.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4 style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">My Polish Child<\/h4>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">I lost a child on the streets of Krakow.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">Somewhere near the center of the square,<br \/>\nwomen queued with pigeons.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">The ending I wanted<br \/>\nwas illegal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">My cousin came on a train<br \/>\nfrom Romania.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">Like an accordion winding down a carnival,<br \/>\nwe tried<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">hard to \ufb01nd the absent word. <em>Loss<br \/>\n<\/em>layered like velvet curtains<br \/>\nround our lips.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">The cathedral held a rat<br \/>\nin reserve, its eyes approaching vermillion.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">I felt a color. Not an expression<br \/>\nof life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">Stones steamed with the imprint of ancient chariots.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">I crossed my heart, told my cousin: <em>we have always<br \/>\nbeen running, letting the next breath escape.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">A couple ended an argument under neon. I held tight<br \/>\nthe ticket. What happened is unlikely<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">to explain. I must have carried it<br \/>\nwrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Romanian American poet Alina Stefanescu presents her poems &#8220;Playing Possum&#8221; and &#8220;My Polish Child.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":548,"featured_media":32534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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