Untitled (from the Silueta Series, 1973-1977) by Ana Mendieta

try not to let the border take you,
just the shadow. the sharp
template-essence of you

stays on as a scent, meaning it lingers—
until maybe rainfall or flood. I want
to climb into the shadow so it becomes a coffin,

but I’d rather ask you first. a horsefly lands, or
at least I imagine it does, or it would. it will
dissolve into nothing, someday soon. fear:

it already has. like volcanic stones
your silhouette carves history to cast waves
onto sand. like a surge barrier,

your shade shelters ground
until it no longer dams. what remains
is just thin and speculation.

 
 
Nina Hanz is a German-American art writer and curatorial researcher. In 2020, she graduated from the Royal College of Art’s MA Writing programme where she cultivated her practice around time and place, geology and ecology. Both her prose and poetry deal with unexpected iterations of the ground, from the grit that gets stuck in a clam shell to the gunk that gets stuck under our fingernails. Recent non-fiction publications include SPAM Zine, Review 31, and MAP Magazine, with forthcoming articles in Cleveland Review of Books and Peripheries Journal. Nina’s poetry can be found in places such as Vogue CS, Daisy World Magazine, Ache Magazine, and Attention anthology. Nina is also an editor at JAWS Journal and curatorial assistant at Therme Art in Berlin.