Poetry

Warren Wong photo

By

Corina Constantinescu

Looking for myself

I missed who I was, as I have forgotten for a long time.

I woke up this morning and I knew –

I am a girl, very very green and wildly forested from the inside out with pine trees and oaks and willows,

with feet in deep cyan waters and growing grassy arms,

born in the shade of mountains, near gales of dusty roads winding over fields of rippled hay.

In winter I step barefoot on frosty snow and breathe icicles around my locks, drawing crystal stars on frozen panes.

In spring I smile crocuses in hidden gardens,

and in summer I rest on chipped kerbs, tanning toes in dirt, tracing fingers along dry grass blades,

until autumn twinkles my eyes with warm sunsets and indigo rains.

I come from a land of mad minds washed in spicy wine from deceptive grape-charms kept in wooden barrels,

squeezed in cupped palms awaiting thirstily for my lips to sip from them.

And there is my home, where my memories sleep carefree and sheltered in my parents’ house, at the end of the stallion’s ride….

Informal letter

Dear Stranger,

I am writing to you, to let you know that I intend to leave this Earth and go to live on the Moon.

As you are my best friend, I thought that you might want to know my new address. I’m moving next week, on Monday, to 2570 Moon Street, Moon, Milky Way, Universe. Please come and visit soon. I am going to wait for you at the gate, every Friday evening, just after dinner.

You may bring a bottle of wine; we can hang onto the crescent and swing on it drinking the wine, looking nostalgically at the men on Earth, at how they live their disparate lives, rushing through cluttered days.

You can then stay forever my dear Stranger. I could cook wish sandwiches for you, garnished with kisses on the forehead. I would be tremendously happy to share the seconds with you; I hate existing alone, as you already know, my dearest.

So, Stranger, I miss you already and it is only Saturday night. There are two more days until Monday. Actually, can you come and help me pack up during the weekend?

Come around to my place, as I have loads of thoughts to arrange in boxes. You can label them into different categories, so that it will be easier for me to unpack after I have moved: thoughts for you, thoughts about the human race, thoughts about my heart.

Then, next Friday, if you come after dinner, just pretend you didn’t know anything about me moving to the Moon and pretend you didn’t help with the packing. Just show me please how much you missed me too.

And stay with me for an eternity.

Yours always,

I

Corina Constantinescu

Born in Romania in 1970, I have a master degree in chemical engineering and I had worked in that field for ten years, before I changed my career completely.

A single mum, I have been living on the outskirts of London for the past eleven years, and I work now as a teacher. Having a passion for writing, which has always been there but not fulfilled until recently, I have flirted with poetry for a long time. I started writing more seriously only from last November, and since then I have written about 160 poems.

I write free verse, rhyming poems and also prose poems. However, I would like to try in the future to write more prose, along with poetry.