Sylvia Gorelick


For Jack

He can see the color red
because he is
a Red

does he know the secret
that I was always
this boy

and what was never secret
in my name
my life

Red is the color of the movies
smoke
vampire lust
never making it home
in your cloak
Red is blood and
activist spirit and
rage

concretely, it was never meant
to be this
way

your inheritance was dreaming
you know
they dreamed of difference

Jack knew surveillance
the first McCarthy era

whispers in the air

there was never a law
to save us
there was only us
alone us

all the lights are red all the poets are dead
—Wanda Coleman

Jack gave me back
my childhood

we sat in silence
with the lasting light
lasting

but how do I survive myself, Wanda?

she was also a boy
like Piper
seeing blood in the water

I trust only
poets who break me open

petals fall
under earth & night

allow
enough in to be alive
at the edge
on the street

although my image has
been erased

my words have not
our souls linger
in the dark
filtered through windows

my too-good
too-shy
child self

my quiet sadness

those eyes I share with him
and so,
am so
proud

PASSION

For L.M.

“it would have killed him
to know she died”
said S

soon after she collapsed
on the street
& I knew I was next

how being called beautiful
can be a death sentence

bombs raining down
near & far

you taught me
the trick of
collapsing distance
through words

our wings are alive
angel applicants in space

you wanted me alive
when no one else did

the first man to lose me
on purpose
was bearded & self-satisfied

philosophy picks up
where psychology means nothing
anymore

he wanted me pinned to
his wall

beyond the dream of death

as if to die every night
was not enough

it would have killed him
to know
I am still living

the second day
is always the worst

I will flame to death
if I must
if you must
know,
you always said
and I did

rooting around in night
for answers
to questions
they could never
understand

the passion is haunted
its music

we’ve survived
too much
to be caught like this
again
in this web
with the sword

we anger men for fear & fun

Poem for Alice

I look at you every day
you said

leaving fleeing
being
another question

I consider the possibility
that my grandparents
are in the
birds

is a mother a ghost?

there are letters &
letters

you say poetry is mere reality

so is haunting

I breathe the air of
ghosts every day don’t we all

my ghosts corporeal & absent
here & far

I am standing here trying to appease your brutality
you write
I feel protected by that

You are a generous mood
wrote L
my mood being
exceptionally ungenerous
these days

I wear the armor of an actor

your poem about our lost ballet

what you meant all those
years ago

we finally first met
after knowing you all my life

Alice Alive

you knew

a cure

largely specific in
atmosphere & distance


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Sylvia Gorelick (they/she) is a poet, translator, and PhD candidate in comparative literature at NYU. Sylvia's chapbook Vampire Poem was published by Cul-de-sac of Blood in 2024, and their poems have appeared in Venti, What a Time to Be Alive, and the Brooklyn Rail, among other places. Their translation of Mallarmé's The Book came out from Exact Change in 2018. Sylvia's scholarly research focuses on revolutionary feminisms in a transnational context through poetry and film.