Tatiana Istomina, Nom, 2019 (Artist Website)
Graphite and Tape on Paper
30 x 44”
My name, now—
a crumpled paper sail-
boat around my brow, all
creases and vowels.
How can I lick the rim
of the basin it was brined in
and not taste salt?
Some oceans crossed and others
crossed out.
My palms prune
when the world calls it out.
Soon, I become obsessed with names—
name and noun or nom et nom, a thing
the sound it sings, and fork tines
limning air.
O O O—the world,
a concatenated string of spell.
I can’t incant anything
but mine, mine, mine.
~
My broom: Simone de Beau-floor.
My dog: Ivan the Terrible,
Ivan Ivanoff, or Ivan Idea.
My surname: If I take it,
then it’s mine ... no matter what.
When the pot shattered,
I stopped the cracks with powdered
gold and platinum,
a la wabi-sabi.
This, too, was a spell. A body lamed
becoming laméd,
a name nodding,
like a lotus.