liquidity, or, how to hold chaos

 

Close your eyes, sense the flickerlight that plays on your skin.

Number your bones. Bind the breaks, seal the gaps.

Make yourself a vessel with a wide-open mouth.  Stretch

 

each inch of spine, of ligament, and vein, allow space

to expand, to bend, to flex. Touch your breastplate, trace

the cage that protects the heart. Press into the pulse.  Step

 

into the refiner’s fire, become molten, resist the coldseep

that will harden you. Burn, if you must. Hold the flame close

to your lungs, speak through the ash that sticks to the back

           

of your throat. Breathe the air. Breathe the water. Breathe

the dust of creation, permutation of life.  Breathe

substrata and stratosphere until indistinguishable, until

liquid, formless, as it was in the beginning.    

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Exiled Creatures [1]

 

Confined to her bed by illness,

she heard the sound of the snail—

soon her true companion, moving

from African violet to desk paper,

 

chewing perfect little squares

with rows of serrated teeth.

In the day, it tucked up under the leaves

to shelter in its unnatural home,

 

both of them suspended, condensing,

becoming the space their bodies occupy

until there is only the distillation

of being whatever is left. 

 

Here in my room, I have folded

into myself, now small enough

to pass through the perfect square

chewed in the corner of an envelope.

 

[1] inspired by the book The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, Elisabeth Tova Bailey

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Nadine Ellsworth-Moran serves in ministry in Georgia. She is fascinated by the stories unfolding all around her and seeks to bring everyone into conversation around a common table. Her work has appeared in Emrys, Theophron, Thimble, Pensive, and Kakalak, among others.  She lives with her husband and four unrepentant cats.

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