Elizabeth McLagan’s poems have been published in many journals such as Poetry Northwest, 32 Poems, Beloit Poetry Journal, American Literary Review, Fine Madness, Grove Review, Hunger Mountain, SLAB, Iron Horse Literary Review, Southeast Review, Third Coast, Willow Springs, Zone 3, and on the website Verse Daily. McLagan’s poems have won an AWP Intro award, the Frances Locke Memorial Award, and the Bellingham Review’s 49th Parallel Award. Her collection of poems, In The White Room, is just out from CW Books. ---------
Number 14 1960
Mark Rothko
Two rectangles: red over blue
floating on brown
To be the consolation, so the eyes do not worry
the unfocused surface, so the mind can seethe
and slow and settle as an eddy swirls and reverses,
current in current: black surf, blue rocks or again
blue surf and fiery mist. And yet red star constellation,
and yet smeared doorway; whether veil or blotch
or bloom, dark rises from the red surface
uneven and loosely worked, and here, Rothko's hand
follows a thought or the end of thought,
brush loaded and reloaded, red gun, red edge
wavering. Every day an unmade bed, a suicide
at dawn, red ghost peeling from the open chest,
and still a field of poppies, rose hips,
sex curve, silk lining in black top hat, volcanic spore.
Feather-flash invention of a way to go on
in dissonant blue. God the wind is stirring
the surface: hand of practice and loss, stone
faith and exile, miraculous, the blue redemption.