“Where are you from” By Marissa Stanton (2015)

Wallace Stevens Poetry Contest, Second Place (2015)

Silvana is talking about America,
my bike is between my skirt. I try to guess her age.
Later, I ask if she thinks the man next to the door is—
we talk, half-shouting in the café. Where is your daughter, now?
I’m mostly speaking to stones behind a fresco.
I’m still not good at it. But I want to make the most of my time.
Rilke talks to me the way I talk to myself.
In Connecticut lonely, dreaming about my ceiling,
I’m learning to see. I don’t know what it’s about.
Leaning into a city from another one, my neck
sticks out over the Atlantic. I try to belong
to where I place my feet, but they don’t know the difference.
The truth is I don’t miss people, the truth is I miss.

This poem first appeared in the 2015 edition of LRR