Jessamine County, KY
by Kristina Erny
Grackles like peppercorns scatter across the fading blue countertop. The clouds, gauzy as they are, are far away. This is a self portrait. I’m a crystal salt shaker, a couple stars thrown up over a shoulder, a pressure cooker for a soupy purple, the field’s sharp extravagant edge. I’m that thing about to burst as it reaches the horizon. WHY AM I SO ANXIOUS, I ask the half-radish moon. THE WORLD IS FILLED WITH PEOPLE WHO LOVE TO HURT EACH OTHER and yet stupidly I still believe in love. I walk through a hall of redbuds. The moon is too salty, so small and so patient. It dangles intent on keeping its secrets.
Kristina Erny is a third-culture poet and visual artist who grew up in South Korea. She is the author of Elijah Fed by Ravens (Solum Literary Press, 2023), and the chapbook PUT A COMMA IN FRONT OF A PERSON (2024), winner of the Harbor Review Editor’s Prize. She holds an MFA from the University of Arizona and her work won the Tupelo Quarterly Inaugural Poetry Prize and the Ruskin Art Club Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Southern Humanities Review, Blackbird, Yemassee and other journals. She currently lives and works in Shanghai, China.
The World is Filled With People Who Love To Hurt Each Other and Yet Stupidly I Still Believe in Love, 11 x 14 inches, mixed media: watercolor, India ink, graphite, oil pastel, January 2024. Click image to enlarge.