After Silent Woods by Dvořák

Özge Lena

It is curfew outside. A hazy evening
in the woods hiding behind
the empty streets lined
by naked trees. Silent.
(Just like you like.)

It is the season of anxious skies.

Sitting on the dry dust
with the sun falling
into the darkness
of my coffee I realise:
I haven’t spoken for three moons.
(What was the colour of your voice?)

My silence is a russet thorn in my throat.

But this evening I am wondering:
What would now, what
would this moment morph
into if you were here?
(How I die for you here.)

I wouldn’t be half alive.

We would listen to Dvořák talking
about how his concertos suit
the cruel clouds crawling
in the silvery skies.
(I remember your words — silver.)

Now is the time of fallen wings.

Within the silence
of the woods made of two
rotten leaves — one for each,
sleeping hungrily under my breasts.
(Just like you like.)

Özge Lena’s poems have appeared in The London Magazine, iamb, Ink Sweat & Tears, Green Ink Poetry, Verse of April, Dark Winter, The Mantelpiece, Sky Island Journal, The Selkie, and elsewhere in five countries including the UK, the USA, Canada, Iceland, and France. Her poem “Celestial Body” was selected for Flight of the Dragonfly Press’ 2023 anthology Take Flight. Özge’s poetry was shortlisted for both the Ralph Angel Poetry Prize and the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition in 2021, as well as for The Plough Poetry Prize in 2023.