the undrowned
i.
here we see the insides
of a filmy ghostly membrane.
what lingers under gauzy skin:
the perforated glow.
here we see a collection of ornaments:
fragile, tinseled, glass angels.
here we see the tacks and buttons
cast haphazardly.
here we see a pond where ripples
hint at things (un)drowned.
what is drowning
when membranes
like water are pierced
and what gasps
through the glistening
puncture wound is air?
zoom in and witness (quietly)
a ritual disrobing:
the ghost of a woman pulls dew
from her hair. squishy, sun-licked pearls.
wipes her chin from what she has guzzled:
blood from the tap of a tree.
what was maple gave way (like lactation)
to something more substantial.
this must be what they mean when they say, she was not given
what was wanted, but what was needed instead.
ii.
I am a fish some days.
on others, the magpie who starts
and snatches air.
the air that spheres out
one two three
whenever I open my lips.
they call it oxygen;
they call these signs of life.
I call them rehearsals.
one of these days
I’ll find the words.
then she can snatch at that.
bird-self, perch there
all you like.
you cannot hurry this.
iii.
besides, I am just here
in the shallows, drinking up the reeds.
a lily pad is bobbing
in my outstretched fingertips.
a cattail, bushy plume and hard stem,
catches on my right thumb.
and there is something rather
regal in this—don’t you think?
orb and scepter
brought to me
by muck and chirping toads.
by red-winged blackbirds,
box turtles,
the gray and downy goslings.
and who would stop me
from self-coronating
sovereign of this pond?
who would still the trumpets
of the mauve mist
on its shore?
iv.
the queen of ponds
and dusk and mire rises
from the lake bed.
presses footprints into sand
and rings out her dark gown.
fireflies crackle against star splatters
and this is her unending crown—
nothing as fixed or as dull as a bauble.
airy. windy. night.
she inhales and her contents dissolve,
leaving only the filament, the outline
of a queen. she exhales, re-solidifies.
a waxing, a waning, a tide. (and)
what other power is there?
the landscape must rule itself.
watch love distill now, the sugar-crust drip.
nourishment oozing
from what was a wound.
v.
magpie, come and see
what I have pressed here in my palm.
I have caught the dipping sun for you—
for you, I have made it a ruby.
wear it around your neck as a medal.
think of me and sing.
Catherine Kyle is the author of the poetry collection Parallel (Another New Calligraphy, 2017); the poetry chapbooks Gamer: A Role-Playing Poem (dancing girl press, 2015), Flotsam (Etched Press, 2015), and Saint: A Post-Dystopian Hagiography (dancing girl press, 2018); and the hybrid-genre collection Feral Domesticity (Robocup Press, 2014). She teaches creative writing at the College of Western Idaho and through The Cabin, a literary nonprofit. Her website is www.catherinebaileykyle.com.
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