F R O M A M E A D O W A S Y L U M T H I R T Y L A R K S R E I G N I L L
To those who say NO to dark nests burdening the branch
breaking silence casting characters for debt
shaken from its branch homeless having a home among nothing
to hunt down the crime location cerebral
classmates from our past we create from them new face in no singular light
where does the end of daybreak go?
repetition become new repetition
poets belong to re-opened wounds and lost collectivity
inhaling spores and hacking up mucus a weekly sweepstakes
what is mine or abandonment of old?
death what kind madness what kind
sent to us look alikes for familiar transaction
from structure of turnips why cling to cream flesh and water it so self-sabotagingly
numb awe from encountering the basis of which earthly life unsprings!
not to produce beautifula and enviabula work in attention to the self
It poses a question dropped from unknown heights
prominent coda to more fully break forms
propagate the super- through supra- my supper beneath rotting candlelight
vocation charred on spits our lungs are split bearing seaman’s pearls
a child yells no screaming!
says but I don’t want the door open then escapes through it
I’m sensitive to children’s tongues their surfaces a breathable elastic
to-be jurors shaking the bars opens the fall on the piano
exposing bones of music how resources provide
for us all so terribly! to do without would be
plenty silent conversation
I F O U N D M Y C A L L I N G
I looked into the walls saw the gorilla mother’s fingerprints
coffin tightly sealed leaked the non-light of ineffable cause I lost my voice
sent the berries to ripen in solitude
rolled when stuck with a needle retaliatory jams the breeze and its genitals
I peeled back paint of course shitty construction
the environment in its smallest units
microbes and atoms make eventual flares non-wreckage of positive wreckage
more renewable gutterly speaking the curse dipped in the inkwell tipped the coffin
rearranging letters it spilled and fascinated I made no move to dissolve
but observed the actual dimension soak itself and slither away
knowing another moved counter-intuitively
Not to search for the invisibles I feel its hands wound tightly around my neck
have I encouraged pleasure? I found my calling
writhing in the just-as-slack condition of its body
passing mile markers the ebullient timed doors double-jointed
oven timers of lunacy sped up surveillance tapes
I found I could expedite the crime and she is no belly dancer
the world salivates thinking of her there is no other parent for us
cutting diamonds to wear the jungle from urge
I found my calling disbanding high horse armies
to instill a set of values I have been its disgruntled employee
mocking my genders my love in octagonal tents laying on storied rugs
forcing consistency through performance disguising the hook as upright enhancement
no wonder I forget simple descriptions getting lost in the image now a difficult present
an owl screeching in my hand confines me
I am already taking on too much responsibility if I took a day off
a contortionist locating missing bones I point with limp finger
the sick have a healthier outlook
as a child with access to sick teachers now I trip the wire
Dot Devota (b. St. Louis, Missouri) writes poems and essays about pre-sickness, sensations in the phenomenon of “falling ill,” and post-viral, chronic and mysterious illness in individual, societal, and environmental body-scapes. Her books include The Division of Labor (Rescue Press), And The Girls Worried Terribly (Noemi Press), The Eternal Wall (Book*hug), Dept. of Posthumous Letters (Argos Books), and PMS (forthcoming from Rescue Press). Excerpts from her nonfiction novel, MW: A Field Guide to the Midwest, are published in PEN America andDenver Quarterly, among other places. Her recent manuscript >SHE is a work of autoimmunefiction. Her pandemic essay “Quarantine Notebooks: A Rhetorical Analysis” was commissioned by The Coffee House Writers Project. Devota’s Wall Poems are large-scale calligraphic installations/ interventions that have exhibited nationally at art museums and galleries. She has given readings in Syria, Lebanon, Japan, Taiwan, and throughout Europe and North America.