Isabel BallanPoetryVenus wounded by a rose’s thorn—Italian, 1500-1550All day you are brilliant out of yourself resplendent. Now night coming there is a fold into which you fold curving...
Isabel BallanPoetryDe Kooning, Easter MondayBird-scream bustle you tangled arms and cars pushing and pulsing with dreams caught in your throats—gag— wait—is that a dagger I see...
Isabel BallanPoetryLouise Nevelson, Mrs. N’s PalaceMy house but the rooms are not mine. Here is where I sat to escape my death, here the mirror of the many faces. Each room says “where?”...
Isabel BallanPoetryJudit Reigel, Guano (Menhir)Follow the tracks the crows make the splintered blue imprints of trees in water. Impressed by pond scum leap over this into that green...