Girlhood Lessons

Before you are exiled by narrative,
make room for your wicked views,
know that perfect happiness is hardly
a match to fleeting instances of awe.
Some gut-wrenching bouts of grief
will follow and life’s teachings and
unteachings remain solid gold. Strike
root in things that make your veins
explode, shed something radiant on
each pillow. A woman’s clavicle is
bound to spur the blood and birth a
poem. Beware of hands willing to clip
the moon, legs burning with fever and
the wear-and-tear memory of stale love.
Turn a blind eye to the sad taste of this
spring and look the other three seasons
straight in the eye before you thrust your
greedy teeth into their abundance.

Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. Recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations appeared in Ambit, HeadStuff, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her collection The Flavor of The Other was published in 2020 with Dos Madres Press. She is the Translation/International Poetry Editor of The Blue Nib.