ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Margaret Malochleb is a poet, writer and editor based in Chicago. Her work has appeared in Cream City Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Rattle, The Shore and Tupelo Quarterly, among other publications.
October 14, 2026
A Survey of Uncharted Histories
after Georgia O’Keeffe, Pink and Green, 1960
Sixty years of desert dust kicks up
and rises in rolling spirals.
Tumbling, unwired, hills emerge
in slow motion. Stark as a bouquet
of naked women resisting
resistance, the slopes sift light
into glassy filaments of green
burrowing deep: a subtraction
of tracks in the landscape. The way
vision can go missing in the midst
of ravishment’s aftermath. Quietly,
until night arrives with no narrative
to translate. A slumber without
disavowal, everything melded
into a growing solitude, the harsh
solace of lost stories laid to rest.
I often turn to art for inspiration when writing poems. In this case it was Georgia O’Keeffe’s Pink and Green (1960), which depicts a river snaking through the hills of the New Mexico desert. The painting’s sinuous lines and fleshy colors brought to mind the female form and how women’s bodily experiences, especially those involving trespass and violence, are often overlooked, silenced or forgotten.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
