Still Life, Reviving, by Stephanie Pressman

Still Life, Reviving, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1963

Still Life, Reviving 
​
Fruit whirl, speeding planets 
        around a flame  -- peach,
mango, tangerine, strawberries,
        kumquat, apples, pomegranate.
Some burst in the outer orbit,
        spew their seed. Below, 
eight pewter plates fly 
        off a swirl of cloth. This supper 
not complete. No utensils, no place 
        to put the peels. We eat them,
eat even the seeds and the pith,
        suck sweet juice in this place -- its old
clerestory walls, the one grimed
        window dark, unglazed, 
letting mosquitos in, letting
        the damp nourish stringy vines
that bear tiny red blossoms: 
        promises. 
​
Stephanie Pressman

A graphic artist and lifelong poet, Stephanie Pressman earned an MA in English from San Jose State University, taught writing at community college, and is the editor of the small press, Frog on the Moon. She served as co-editor of Cæsura and americas review. Her work has appeared in both print and online journals. Her poem “Self” was a finalist in The Ekphrastic Review’s 2021 Women Artists Contest. Her long poem Lovebirdman appears in an illustrated volume available on Amazon. Currently, she is working on a volume of ekphrastic poetry featuring women artists, many of whom she was unfamiliar with before beginning the project.