a poem about asking
i don’t know you the way amanita doesn’t know the dark only that it keeps growing toward it anyway i am an origami continent smooth obsidian shard small enough to swallow ( nigredo ) veins of pitch weeping from the creases soldered beneath your nails inky tar reaching anima : stands waist-deep lodged in the black between canine and incisor say it say the thing growing under your tongue i will hear it in the marrow say it without moving your mouth and the first corner lifts ( albedo ) from the fold : egret tears free dripping moon milk beak mercury needle : stitching ether until it’s sick with white say it again say it softer until the air hums yellow ( citrinitas ) hive cleft by dawn sun hatches from my left lung it crawls across the page sticky with pollen newborn laughing at its lateness i am unfolding clear a space ( rubedo ) red as the biting mouth first hemorrhage of seeing first smoldering garnet your hands : if they are hands cupping poppy vermilion mars never the good child meet me where the veil thins rice paper gaze : remember tomorrow say it and i become the enormous breathing everything ( solve et coagula ) basalt horizon buckles aching tectonic all the forests groan to standing branches bent heavy bearing unripe planets see the bright mask eating it’s own tail may i never be small again




Your poetry is slick. "the air hums yellow" "forests groan to standing", striking imagery throughout.