Alexandra Mattraw

EVERY FIGURE 1 : I

:  is concentric  :

: rakes sand to remove pine needles :

: believes in the impersonal :

: melts ice left in the glass :

: sees story arc in oceans :

: writes down what’s eaten :

: differentiates :

: mistakes highway tire treads for dead crows :

: grows in sand :

: chalks a nightstand with aspirin :

: can reply, “The tumbleweed barbs the rumble strip hills” :

: is damp :

: thinks the heart has a smell :

: believes the deer will migrate through the deer underpass and live into the other side :

: is a member :

: will argue, “Mushrooms and stones are currency.” :

: slips :

: collects green bottles to empty them :

: can’t see her full body when looking directly :

: is why :

: believes the river has a beginning :

: will pay for it


Alexandra Mattraw’s first chapbook, Projection, is available at Achiote Press, and her second chapbook, in the way of harbors, is forthcoming at Dancing Girl Press.  A former Vermont Studio Center resident, her poems and reviews have also appeared in journals such as Denver Quarterly, Verse, Word For/Word, VOLT, and American Letters and Commentary. Alexandra’s full manuscript was a finalist at both Nightboat Books (2009) and 1913 Press (2011).  She runs a reading and art salon series in San Francisco called Lone Glen.