Time’s Strain

Rose Maloukis



There are those who point out
to me the rules I break, offer
a heuristic technique to survive
to wear the whole shindig.

White hat black hat no matter
a price is paid for pushing
my own heat, sparks and embers  
migrate to the cooler ridicule.
                     
I’m not going back to where
I came from, can’t get cozy
with a honky-tonk god, acquiesce
where no one speaks my language.

Twang!  my deformation de·pen·
dent on fatigue, I think, but refuse
to confess to a true belief—that
things might have been different.




Rose Maloukis is a poet and visual artist, with a BFA from Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. She was born and grew up in the United States but has dual citizenship and resides in Montreal.  Her poetry was short-listed for the 2015 Montreal International Poetry Prize and two poems were published in Matrix Magazine, Issue #105. A winning Second Place erasure poem has been published in Geist’s 2018 Spring Issue #108.  Her chapbook, Cloud Game with Plums is forthcoming from above/ground press.