Natalie E. Illum has lived in Washington, DC, since 1999, mainly in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood. She moved here to study poetry at American University and produce poetry events at the Black Cat, The Fridge DC, and other local venues.
Natalie’s work slants toward autobiography and focuses on disability, activism, and trauma. She has been published in over 25 literary journals and several anthologies (two of which are DMV- focused) and is a frequent DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities individual artist fellow.
I have done nothing all summer
after Georgia O’Keeffe
I have done nothing all summer but
wait for myself to be myself again.
Grief is not the python’s belly.
It is the woman swallowed whole.
The unhinged jaw and gapping
scream into everything
that is lush and deadly.
I used to love the allure
of a desert horizon.
Anything that raced
to disappear into the shade.
But waiting to turn you into dust
is excruciating; the venom’s spread
everywhere and I can’t even find
a snake charmer to beg.
I keep waiting for your death to over me
like a storm and leave in its wake
something worthy of an O’Keeffe.
The snake is full of my love for you.
A whole human vessel of it, dissolving.
Sandra Beasley is the curator of “Poetic Hill,” a resident of Southwest, and the author of four poetry collections. If you live in D.C. and you’re interested in being featured, you can reach her at [email protected] for questions and submissions (1-5 poems).
