Eszter Takacs


Four Girls

              First girl is the lifespan of a fact,      like pearls
     and the rhythm of a number,
                     say twenty-eight
cut loose in a    dirty black stream
of broken Man. Didn’t survive. Then the second girl. Frame the particulars:
              summer and atmosphere, buoyancy . Boy,           buys
string of                  tongues and blanks.
              Then it’s murder.     Turning tables.       Trigger happiness.
No matter. You can’t pretend a language because its eyes will know
              the difference between dialect and spoken truth.
              Girl three isn’t rain. She buys indoor machinery, sparks easily,
                            and holds a handgun               up to the light.
                                          At the next moon-slip, each turn of the ankle
        becomes                 an understanding,
the weight of the     body’s aperture   as it slows and pulls against
        the cork      screw verses of painted salt-grain.
It isn’t    until the Only, then can       the pirouette,       a collapsing of the night,
              a strangling, be fulfilled.    Heat is forgiving
                                                          of languor.
                              Girl four is      of the sun’s weakness.



(Note: The phrase "the lifespan of a fact" in line one of the poem above is taken from the title of a recently-published book by John D'Agata and Jim Fingal.)

Eszter Takacs lives in Los Angeles. She holds a BA in English from Loyola Marymount University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in L.A. Miscellany, The Dirty Napkin, Mixed Fruit, Birdfeast, and others.
 
 
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