Emma Alexandrov

New York

The city, the sacrificial dance.
Our time cropped close to fit.
Vast mouth, stretched streets:
humming well of sound. Circumstance:
scarcity, sacrifice. Talking
and listening replace each other,
the space for silence is filled.
So we replace each other, you and I:
there's not enough for both of us.
Our ornate contest for place
is a dance, a survival routine:
wide well seething, streets brimming,
we dance: replace other
with self, then displace self,
another self, another self...

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Emma Alexandrov is an aspiring mind scientist and writer splitting time between Atlanta, GA, Portland, OR, and Poughkeepsie, NY, where she is a junior at Vassar College.