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Exulansis

By Marina Carreira
Spring 2023 | Poetry

See that white butterfly right there, that one, pieris rapae

perched on the rose bush to pray before gliding over gladiolas?

I want to tell you that’s my Avó come to visit, remind me

that life is suffering and skirmish and strolls through a garden

girdled with beauty. I want to convince you that the dead come back

to watch our back, keep us from stepping in shit twice. With a flick

of its wings, these bug-ghosts save us every day from ourselves.

Don’t you know? Oh, forget it. Forget my wild beliefs and tenuous truths.

Two sweet pups sleep on the couch, cuddled together in a bundle

of fur, the youngest flat on the floor, tongue out like red carpet.

These things you know, you see, you understand.

Marina Carreira (she/they) is a queer Luso-American poet artist from Newark, NJ. She is the author of Tanto Tanto (Cavankerry Press, 2022) and Save the Bathwater (Get Fresh Books, 2018). She has exhibited her art at the Newark Museum, Morris Museum, ArtFront Galleries, West Orange Arts Council, Monmouth University Center for the Arts, among others. Find her on Instagram at @savethebathewater.


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