Devon Balwit writes in Portland, OR. She has five chapbooks out or forthcoming: How the Blessed Travel (Maverick Duck Press); Forms Most Marvelous (dancing girl press); In Front of the Elements (Grey Borders Books), Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders Books); and The Bow Must Bear the Brunt (Red Flag Poetry). Her individual poems can be found in earlier editions of this journal as well as in The Cincinnati Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Stillwater Review, Red Earth Review, Psaltery & Lyre,The Ekphrastic Review, Emrys Journal, and more.
1.
Photon Energy: E=
Lesson One:
Today, I invite you to be other than
yourself.
Do not limit yourself to cordate or
pinopsida.
Imagine new use for both pore and spiracle.
Refuse the binaries of stillness and
motion.
fr(om)
t(he) c(on)e
spr(out)s
t(he) ques(tin)g br(an)ch
fr(om)
t(he) b(ran)ch e(me)rge the (need)les
fr(om)
t(he) (need)les s(pill)s t(he) h(eave)nly re(sin)
Lesson Two:
Peel back your skin. Let the iron upwelling
mingle with air. Lap at its scarlet. Press your lips
to the nearest wall a new Lascaux. Find a use for the ullage.
O
inanimate I // I wish I were a caterpillar //
clinging
by feet to leaf hairs // munching
sun
become sugar // awaiting the coming
of
wings //
Lesson Three:
A child complains that her skin is crumpled. She
wants to exchange herself and be returned
smooth
as plastic.
Tell her it cannot be done, that when the
flash floods come, Spirit will need wadis
for its
coursing.
If she were smooth, she would surely drown.
I am a
suture.
I am a
staple.
I am the cut end of a lanyard.
I am a
licorice whip.
I am the
tongue of a newt.
Lesson Four:
Light creates umbra. Umbra begets penumbra and antumbra,
highlight and cast shadow. Locate the shadow edge, the middle
dark tone.
Eschew the black and white.
Arc
Vee
O
( )
{insert
equation here}
***
I. finale [rain-slicked street reflecting
cheek]
staggering / ly beautiful
in
her sway / ing
from curb to wall / hand out
stretched
/ like
a diva’s before the ap / plause / roses
cascade
/ ing /
echo / ing throats’ / red stream /
ers
/ brava / brava / in
a tym / pani of trash / cans
she
/ falls floor /
wards in a final bow
the
wrecked en / core of
her face fad / ing out / the house
lights
wink / ing on
one by one / the depart / ing
careful
to avoid her
soft / ness as they step a / round
dah /
ling you must
let
me know when she re / turns/
we will sure/ly come
II. reprise [gestation]
in the night / light hands pat her down
shak / ing
every
so slight / ly
feel / ing no wallet they retreat / the way
they
came
/ leav / ing
space for a shy rat with tick / ling
whis
/ kers that / find / ing
no crumbs licks with its small tongue
just
once tast / ing salt
and pher / omone heat before skitter / ing
back
in / to shadows /
she curls fe / tal await / ing
the
slap of dawn / and
her own sharp in / drawn breath
***
3. Pain is / all that remains
Pain is a landscape I map, its genius loci;
we constitute each other / fetal. I dream of it reaching term,
of pushing it out, boundaries restored / a
watermark,
its ghost face swimming from opacity / a
child pulling
my sleeve—push it away, it whines, slap it,
it whimpers / a Mass
sung in perpetuity for me, the sole
congregant.
residing
in, but not limited to:
jaw,
hips, feet, fingers, wrists,
calves,
behind the left eye—
experienced,
but not limited to:
when
I take a step, when I
sit,
when I lie, when I write,
when
I open doors, the mornings
the
evenings, all day long—
Pain is my conjoined twin, separate wills
battling
over shared limbs / a tattoo burred in
flesh,
a pattern of scars / a spore in the
drywall,
spreading till it begs the crowbar / a
sampler
of chain, cross, daisy, satin, fine French
knots,
a lapse into ragged.
remedies
suggested, but not limited to:
acceptance,
acupuncture, chinese medicine,
cortisone,
electric pulses, insoles, massage,
meditation,
nsaids, prayer, rubber balls,
relearning
to walk, strigiling, surgeries,
time,
turmeric, weed—
Pain is a parachute drop, winds whirling me
to an uncharted landing / the thing that
something
must be done about / my very own, like
death /
a box within a box / all that remains /
the experience of lifting one more lid.
***
4. Night Stadium
“Thank
you for sending poems. You have obvious skill, but none of these
quite
convinces me of its urgency, if you know what I mean.” RM
Stacked hurdles spike a palisade. Even
with enough urgency, I cannot clear
them, or I’ll be skewered, food
for shrikes. The bare bleachers offer
no encouragement, nor the sand pits,
naked without jumpers. Home,
the scoreboard lies, Visitors, devoid of
welcome. The score remains zero / zero.
With enough urgency, guests become
family, entering the fray. Without it, and
there’s no contest; no one stumbles
or mounts the podium. Javelin and
discus sulk in their racks. Why the long
face? Why the disorder? That’s why
we
need passion, coach bellows. Drop
and
give me twenty. Without urgency,
it’ll be twenty more. I push off against
the starting blocks, run the long laps
round, chasing my shadow as it
shapeshifts beneath floodlights.
Without urgency, the flag droops,
helmet crests hang, ornamental.
The eyes of history upon me, I
picture the tape as I hurtle through.
(afterWassily Kandinsky’s Untitled, 1944)