Rothko’s White Center, 1957, by Jari Chevalier

Untitled (White Center, 1957), by Mark Rothko (USA, b. Latvia). 1957.

Rothko’s White Center, 1957

in horizontal bands a cleaved rage floats
scarlet planet
rent by light
wisps at edges

joining kingdoms of vapor

vermilion will held
fast by brilliance
this
gravity of resolute peace
this steam-to-steam flag of an unrecognized
country whose people would die before they’d retreat

Jari Chevalier

Jari Chevalier's poems are forthcoming in Puerto del Sol and Green Mountains Review and have recently appeared in Arcturus, Beloit Poetry Journal, Boulevard, The Cincinnati Review, Concīs, The Cortland Review, Gulf Coast Online, The Massachusetts Review, and Poetry East, among others. In Fall 2016 her poem won the inaugural poetry contest at Sheila-Na-Gig Online and she was a semi-finalist for the 2016 Tomaž Šalamun Prize from Verse magazine. In 2014 she received a Merit Award in the Atlanta Review International Poetry competition and was a finalist in the Ploughshares Emerging Writer's Contest. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in writing and literature from Columbia University and a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from CCNY. For more information, please visit http://jarichevalier.com