Karolina Zapal
My Future Daughter During Adolescence
My mother is crazy
She passes out copies of her favorite poetry
to us every morning with toast. She says
I am just like her
We both stick our noses in our books, hoping
no one important catches us
like we were colds
I cannot count how many times I have opened
a book and not finished it
I want to be held firmly by words
like an eyelash on my finger in the shower
I can’t blow off to make a wish
but I feel like a coward
cozy, caught on
boys’ words
I cannot count how many times
I have opened my heart
and finished it
From MER Vol. 19
Karolina Zapal is an itinerant poet, essayist, translator, and author of two books: Notes for Mid-Birth (Inside the Castle, 2019) and Polalka (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018). Her work has appeared in The Seventh Wave, Mantis, Posit, Witness, and others. She has completed three artist residencies: Greywood Arts in Killeagh, Ireland; Brashnar Creative Project in Skopje, Macedonia; and Bridge Guard in Štúrovo, Slovakia. She works at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities.