[Everything is close]
After Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours (III, 20)
Everything is close
today, the watery glow
from the daffodils
blooming on the balcony,
the wind inflating the green
sail of the curtain,
the neighbor’s dog
yapping again at a passer-by.
I knew something was wrong
when his bark turned
from annoying to cute.
I’m thawing.
I feel it in my bones.
I’m too close to the rain
that’s been falling for days,
turning flesh to water.
I’m liquid, a jellyfish,
eerily transparent.
Let the city pour through me,
I want nothing of myself.
Whoever I was,
that woman held a box
in her hands and in it, her heart.
Unused for so long,
it slowly turned to stone.
Romana Iorga
Originally from Chișinău, Moldova, Romana Iorga is the author of Temporary Skin (Glass Lyre Press, 2024), a woman made entirely of air (dancing girl press, 2025), Auz simplu (Semne Press, 2000), and Poemul sosirii (Glasul Press, 1996). Her work has appeared in The Nation, Lake Effect, New England Review, Salamander, RHINO, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. Iorga’s new poetry collection, Witness Protection, won the Fall 2025 Black River Chapbook Competition and is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in 2027.
