Victoria Nordlund
Infinity
It’s 2019 and the Lady of Shalott
still leaned on her velvet bed viewing
the world through a shadow.
She delighted in her web and
developed quite a following
in her tower, swiped left again
for Lancelot, avoided the other curse,
the boat, and the dying thing—
ubered to downtown LA
and having little other care, took
duck-lipped selfies at the Broad gallery
as she stood impatiently in line to view
the exhibition that Katy Perry
and Adele said was a must see.
And she Tweeted and Snapchatted
and Instagrammed and posted and updated
her story: #thesoulsofamillionlightyearsaway
#YayoiKusama #infinitewait
#mirrorsaresocool
So when it was her turn,
she weaved steadily to Long for
Eternity—and spied a shining meteor
in the corner of her eye
repeating and repeating
in the blue unclouded beams of light,
in the tunnels of great depth,
in the smaller and smaller reflections
that receded into infinity.
And as the LED’s Burn’d like one burning
flame together, she cried because she
had never seen something so beautiful
in the window of her phone.
About the writer:
Victoria Nordlund is an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut. Her chapbook Binge Watching Winter on Mute will be published in Summer 2019 by Main Street Rag. She is a 2018 Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize Nominee whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in PANK Magazine, Rust+Moth, Gone Lawn, Maudlin House, and other journals.
Image: Columbine’s Little Tongue by Konstantin Somov (1869-1939). No medium specified. No size specified. 1915. Public domain.
