Poetry by Clara Burghelea

​The arithmetics behind the hug

When out of numbers,
we could count the heartbeats
and the way they softly translate into hugs.
One at dawn,
cracking the shells of the day,
two more at noon,
in the steaming warmth of the senses,
half a hug,
as you command the core of the day
Into submission,
a couple of hug-free hours,
embedded in thought,
bearing resemblance to the tarried clouds.
As for the rest of the longing embraces,
too many to tally,
too few to save,
they shall fall silently between the starched sheets,
to shelter from all the harms of the subtraction.



​
Scapular love
​
Of bones, mostly.
The way they rise beneath the flesh,
opinionless,
like the sling of a restless bow,
yearning for the straight arrow
to deliver the palm-to-face moment 
of the day.
Its fashionable tingle,
way deep, within the innocent marrow,
sweet to the tongue,
bitter to the eye.
Only in sleep is Time at ease.
Wholly in the solace of the child,
bones grow unhindered
of the coating pulp.
So you will never know
what lurks behind the blades,
when the cage is anointed with blood.




Accrual of habit

Love never changes midweek.
It takes a long weekend 
to ruin the random understanding 
of its death,
the agony of longing and all those
broken embraces hanging midair.
I wish I could settle on a kiss
as my first move,
but then, there are cinders
in my mouth and a great heaviness
coiling at my feet,
and the taste of burned dreams
seems honied, as well as bitter.
Still, today is a young Wednesday,
so let us agree on 
a trace of gentle tenderness
and speak less through the week. 
​
​

Bio: Clara Burghelea is Editor at Large of Village of Crickets and an MFA candidate at Adelphi University. Her poems and fiction have been published in Peacock Journal, Full of Crow Press, Quail Bell Magazine, Ambit Magazine, The Write Launch and elsewhere. She lives in New York.

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