after Alejandra Pizarnik
All night I make night in me. I fugue.
Water howls violently outside,
a ribbon patterned from the sound of
someone sobbing
in the memory of
some halo, bitter bright, shrapnel of grief.
All night I spill questions. Death
breathes a nest of smoke through the nostrils
of its wolf mask— tapetum lucidum
leering out until night opens in me.
I lurch forward at its looking.
Eric Stiefel is a poet and critic living in Athens, Ohio with his dog, Violet. He teaches at Ohio University, where he is pursuing a PhD. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Apple Valley Review, Prism Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Tupelo Quarterly, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere.