sophiewonfor

writing,

i think all this is to say poetry is a place to go and be
February 16, 2021

Without the cafes to go to in routine and write in our journals, I think of myself and my mother taking walks and calling friends and leaving voicemails to let them know we’re thinking about them, awaiting no return and walking through the day in whatever sunshine or lack thereof it brings. It’s hushing cold winter rain today, licking away at the piles of the long last snow. Crossing the river and wondering, what do we do now, how do we shape and understand ourselves without the ridges we clung to, before, of the restaurants we liked and the cafes we met our friends at between classes or shifts. Without our luxuries of scheduled appointments and commitments, of being expected somewhere. Perhaps the shapelessness of now is that no one expects us anywhere.

Warm wet fog collapses over the river, insulating the greased hinges that shudder to start to move into form. What they’ll churn into being, what windows we’ll look out of in a few months time. Who’s to discern? Writing to our local officials. I used to spend hours writing emails, or spilling out essays, without difficulty, in a flow of confidence that pooled into a mold of a life I thought I’d like to live. I had it. Here on the other side, in the thick bright murk of demi-desperate sculpting titles I could pin onto an email signature. To present ourselves in such a way that we feel alive and in fact here at all. To answer inevitable questions as we claw through all the reasons we’ve turned away and curled in, parcelled up some integral truth because it felt energizing to declare we were moving on from it.

Shining circles through clay covered portholes so we can recognize each other’s faces. Aren’t you there the way you’ve always been? I miss the determination of falling in love, however saccharine a purpose it proffers. Steep high hard fall. To finally give in so much to someone being there so declaratively for me, languid noodle who woke up to find a toothpick-marshmallow architecture project ensnaring our entangled waists. Like waking up from a fairies’ dream, where years have passed and your friends long gone and still you look only an hour’s aged and Mab snickers on.

Which is exactly what I mean, by what I stowed away. Being inundated with projection maybe i tried to veer too hard away. Poetry still sends ropes out trawling, poetry still sails for me, hauls me, beaches the wreck and in a string of words pushed on pages from another’s head, behind their eyes a string of words was set, and they pressed them on the page. For other marbled eyes to grasp at, clutch at in relief and gratitude. Aliveness. All it means to wake up and breathe and feel and do, the point of creating and the purpose of expression. For just words. For the necessity of bards and ballads.

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afterwards, in a room, honeydew melon hued,
“this is aftermath,” echoing, resounding, thick.
how often did i actually breathe this morning
“have you remembered to breathe yet today?”
the green flash, if we drop the flesh of a melon
into the sea does it turn blue, blue, blue as glass
swashing between the two like gnashed saliva
frothing between solidity, “how thick is water?”
“how long are the waves?” everyone, all at once,
asking out loud, chorus of voices through the
fog, mildewed mist clung to breaking news:

[2017]

wind winnows to
say, “lean toward”
and we glean dust,
from heavy heads
drift smallnesses
those who’ll listen,
who’ll glean,
who’ll meet in
the small of a back
press the shape of
holding, “leaning,”
finding, met by the
slide of how hours
curve, dip, collect
mirroring these
moon-held
mirroring these
moon-fold
mirroring these
winnowed

––––
the lick of an edge
river-wrought or
smoothing, sway
that in each ledge
clay lapped upon
its preceding silt
accepting slope
refining tilt

[excerpt from wilt, or other curve, 2017]

a few notes on how:

breaking open, peeling apart
(inside tangerines, shells of eggs)
there is, there will be
space to open even more to reach
out and listen, lay hands down on
the grit of the pavement and feel:
the earth is still always pulling.
wet concrete from weatherish,
weatherist, whether it’s wet or:
wet or concrete, we’re trying ever
to see, but a mass of wool felting
over eyes, which ache and weep

and then, in aches and after weeks
there is and will be space, it is more
open
light does not pour in so easily as
the day filters in through the news
the past, the window, and we would
voluntarily peel these things apart,
tap boiled eggs on the counter top
and lay bare: soft defenceless yoke

(vulnerable core sunk in my throat)
and don’t forget this morning to
peel myself apart, ourselves apart
find pith, find pulp, find purpose
find hope and won’t forget this

[published in The Void, 3AM, 2017]