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  • Ode to Lithium #140:Natural
  • Shira Erlichman (bio)

Each subway car will be left on the ocean floor, to be assimilated into the ecosystem. Over time, every surface will be covered in life, creating an artificial coral reef.

Viralforest, “Stunning Photos Showing NYC Subway Cars Being Dumped into the Ocean”

Today I don’t want to take youso I imagine you a subway carpush you over my edgeto rust at my sea floor.Ferment & flower, metallic

traveler. I’ve been thrownoff my axis                    sorrow’smy monogamouslove. Once I shunned youwanting to be “natural”—

tea tree milk, sproutedcashews, bark deodorant“natural.” Stopped taking you& soon was lost in snowstroking branches for hours for [End Page 260]

hours walked jagged circlesmuttering sudden secrets revealedby ice                                      wept.Against my will I swallow twobusted down caterpillars

let you         sink to the bottom.“It’s not personal,” I tell myself.Even the sea needs        eventhe sea         needs, the seaneeds, even the sea. [End Page 261]

Shira Erlichman

In Hebrew, Shira means “song” and “poem.” Born in Israel, living in Brooklyn, Shira Erlichman is a songwriter, producer, writer, and visual artist who has shared stages with Ani DiFranco, CocoRosie, Mirah, and Andrea Gibson. Her writing has been published in Buzzfeed, the Huffington Post, BUST Magazine, Winter Tangerine, Muzzle, Prelude, the Massachusetts Review, and Union Station, among others, and in the anthology Courage: Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls. Her latest album, Subtle Creature, was released in August 2016.

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