A. E. Stallings

The Piñata

It is a task to kneel to, mixing the paste,
Tearing yesterday’s news into thin strips,
Exhaling spirit into a tautened green
Translucence. It’s a sticky kind of work,

Making the emptiness visible and solid
With stiff cartonnage of ink-stained paper.
So words are smuggled through millennia.
Now here I am, mummifier of breath,

Binding air’s shape with spells, English and Greek
Crisscrossed. A paper nest, a hive of sweet.
My dear, here’s your blindfold, here’s your stick.

I’ll spin you by the shoulders round and round.
Swing for the head that must be battered open
To scatter these bright ephemera at your feet.

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A. E. Stallings is a US-born poet who has lived in Greece since 1999. Her most recent poetry collection, Like (FSG, 2018), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Recent verse translations include Hesiod's Works and Days for Penguin Classics and an illustrated The Battle Between the Frogs and the Mice from Paul Dry Books.