p o e t r y

I do not belong to ether

or the spice garden living in my limb

I can belong nowhere, in the sea crust,

on the drifts of petals 

thrown eastward, origami in

prayers ripening the darkness,

falling off the stone wall, notes, leaves 

histories bitter under my tongue,

the herb that was brewed from 

Mother to daughter, from a Nile

that pulled us through 

between its legs, swallowed 

our sorcery and stone,

spit us out on the sand,

to crawl and find home;

 

now the compass is a strange nectar 

of all the summers I left myself 

to find my bones, the milk 

from the hilltops spilling 

through cities and dreams,

the foreign smell of a thick honey 

blurring the seed, like i can ripen

softly beneath a very old and smoking 

Cedar tree— and this is the traveler’s

prayer, to touch dust 

and leave no signature,

to sleep inside life, but the 

tomb remains barren; 

 

that we weren’t 

ever here, that our memories 

are fragile picture frames jutting 

into stars, that I can move 

through caves, curved like 

the body we were carved into,

a vessel of olives,

as the rain oils the ground 

we walk.

 

 

   Lea