Elizabeth Pavlov

Benjamin Russell

Dzvinia Orlowsky

Prayer for a Daughter

Fill the cellars. Wait for winter
with its daggers, crystal sheeted windows
where I press my breath, speak in secret
My girl, my beauty, I dove deep through winter’s white gowns
of creation, a desire prepared to build lips of wax
pelt of plaster. Surfaced with you.
The delicacy of blood, simple water.
Too near, too far: humid vapor, callous ice
daughter, I cannot teach you how to love
My spade splits its tines against stone
The cold closes in.
I wish for you, the sea.

Elizabeth Pavlov was born to an Eastern European mother, who taught her the poetry of paprikas, kiefle, and the fine art of all things floured and boiled to dumpling perfection. She returned recently to a family reunion in Ukraine that included homemade vodka. In preparation for her return to Eastern Europe in 2007 to continue her reconstruction of family history, she labors over Russian, Hungarian, and Slovak. Her cat is quite disturbed by these foreign rumblings. Her poetry has also appeared, most recently, in Arsenic Lobster.