sestina for the girl who writes me poetry by Mariya Tacheva (16, United States)*

i find abysmal and cataclysmal solace in your solemn 
beauty and revel in the sweet song 
you sing to me as you perch on my 
windowsill. your affections are weathered and feathered and we have become
tethered to one another, your winged embrace 
constellating us into an indelible oneness. ​

---

in verse, you warbled to me that a oneness 
is not made up of two halves but rather two solemn 
wholes embedded in an effervescent embrace 
and married in merry song. 
by dawn, the canaries have become 
your gentle orchestra, and by dusk, the nightingales my 

brazen symphony. all except you scatter at the shrill of my 
cry and again i wonder how a oneness 
so bilateral can become 
a truth far greater than a reality. dearest, a solemn 
duet is still a single song. 
your lyrics choke me in a doting embrace 

and i have become deaf to all save for the notes that embrace
your tender throat. they peck at my 
temples and puncture my breast. till the day i die this song 
will never cease, the violinists will never tire, and our oneness
will forever remain the most solemn 
artifact of what it is to become 

love’s most esoteric handmaidens. the seedlings in our bellies will become
shoots and the blossoms will embrace 
our interwoven bodies. we are solemn 
and we are free and we are my 
greatest creation. we are the songstresses and our oneness
cannot be replicated by mockingbird song. 

for you, my cardinal serenade, the song 
i sing in hopes that you hear just what i have become 
at the mercy of your balmy croons. our oneness 
transcends the most beautiful birdsong, as we welcome the embrace
of our own moonstruck ballad. listen to my 
impassioned melody as it adjoins yours, solemn
and unforgiving in its oneness, our sovereign song exalts the
solemn, and we are damned to become imprisoned in this
indulgent embrace, to the ends of time, my lover.