[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2f66′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”]
We forget the body can become a way out
of life :: & death :: & you
came to a dead river across two islands with all the weight
of a wake unprepared.
Shunned, even, of wrath & rage. Nothing would grow if you didn’t
have an answer
that my life was safe. I wasn’t asking for your hands. Nor were it
chance if you were
to join me in collecting all the little neutrinos we aren’t
supposed to feel.
But the nature of accidents isn’t accidental, my friend,
in that what you think isn’t there
knows exactly what it’s doing
to us
& how
& when.
& what cross-
roads bear. The weight of such a question divides us
because conviction itself cannot be measured. I wasn’t
asking for your hands—my body
is not two swans lost
to red tide :: the waves we make
elegiac.
It was a matter of invitation, if I should fall for it,
completely, a force greater than any strong, electro-
magnetic or weak. A force much. {Much} greater than
gravity. Efes bears the crown & brings me to my knees.
While it is numbers, shaky
& uncertain, that bind us
together.
& {I have no
burdens only} singing little
threads that bear no resemblance
to actual strings, much less two figures who can’t seem
to reach each other in the shortest of distance.
They are not elegant.
I mean. My vibrations, my math. In particular.
The math holding me together is particularly faulty.
My math is purely strings & exponentially misbehaving.
I am made up of much fucking {& many}
weird equations
full
of anomalies
where X equals all sorts of subatomic roads
unrelated & quarreling. My {most unnetural} apologies.
Because it seems, no matter what, anyway, all lead
:: back to Efes ::
& do you regret watching me
go through this
:: {flitting} shape of being ::
where gravity cannot compete.
& rivers in which you seek
assurances will die
when there is no life
:: {left} ::
at poetic feet.
When those shallow waters are stripped
of meter, syllable & accent—only then
will time reveal itself
:: to no one ::
that it is nothing
compared to a force living
outside of it.
I’d be lying if I say I didn’t fear Efes
as much as I murmur & hiss
against all these little strings
having their way with me.
& I’d be lying if I say I didn’t
:: like getting heavy heavy ::
with all these bomb solar neutrinos,
the wild-on ghost particles
seeping into my body
when they shouldn’t
affect me, much less
matter. To which they hiss
& murmur & mess when I hold
something as simple & delicate
as asking a friend
if it were meant
:: to be ::
That somehow could we still share :: time :: all the while with Efes passing
through
me & has been
& relentlessly
reaching & reaching for
& sometimes touching
God—
& still you stand at the same river,
thinking of the answer you gave, one from where the head
cannot meet the heart
for reasons unknown
From Hunger Mountain Issue 23: Silence & Power, which you can purchase here.
Art by @anna_croc01, curated by Dana Lyons.
[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2f66′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”]
[av_one_half first]
[/av_one_half]
[av_one_half]
Recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and Canto-Mundo, Rosebud Ben-Oni’s most recent collection, turn around, BRXGHT XYXS, was selected as Agape Editions’ EDITORS’ CHOICE (2019). She writes for The Kenyon Review blog. Her work appears in Poetry, APR, The Poetry Review (UK), Tin House, Guernica, among other places; her poem, “Poet Wrestling with Angels in the Dark,” was commissioned by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in NYC and published by the Kenyon Review Online. Find her at 7TrainLove.org.
[/av_one_half]
[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2f66′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”]Adidas footwear | Nike Shoes