Issue > Poetry
Svetlana Turetskaya

Svetlana Turetskaya

Svetlana Turetskaya’s poetry and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Blackbird, Peauxdunque Review, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly West, Pleiades, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere. She is a recent recipient of a work-study scholarship in poetry to Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, she lives in Seattle.

Snippets of Pain from the Diaries, Poems & Letters of Marilyn Monroe

A Cento



Pardon me—I'm sorry to wake you

I must say, at least they had the decency to carry me face down. You know
at least it wasn't face up. I just wept quietly all the way there

Don't cry my doll, don't cry
I hold you and rock you to sleep
Hush hush I was only pretending now
I'm (was) not your mother who died

They cut me open—

(Scream—
You began and ended in air
But where was the middle?)

And there is absolutely nothing there—
The only thing that came out was so finely cut sawdust—like
Out of a raggedy Ann doll—

Crying not hysterically just large drops

The cry of things dim and too young to be known yet

The mouth makes me the saddest, next to my dead eyes

Actress must have no mouth

His eyes must look out

The pain of his longing when he looks—
at another

Lush Green from the Diaries, Poems & Letters of Marilyn Monroe

A Cento




The meadows are huge
the earth (will be) hard
on my back

Women looked stern and critical

They reminded me of young slender trees still growing and painful

I'm looking for my lover

And the silence is alone

Oh peace I need you—even a peaceful monster

In the faint light I see his manly jaw

(Always admired men who had many women)

Did you see The Misfits yet? In one sequence you can perhaps see how bare and strange a tree can be for me

Sad, sweet trees—
I wish for you—

I shall feed you from the shiny dark bush
just left of the door

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