Tall naked trees with green only for hats.
A row of them, spindles. It's not worth leaves
where rain won’t touch, sun can’t see,
but you’ve been growing without leaving.
She’s been bloating under a roof of skin.
/
Make a map of the house and mark what feels natural. Designate the referent to:
sun, rain, wind, soil. This class was designed to bring you closer to your body. Get
closer to it. Flex your feet so toes point towards the ceiling. Stretch your legs so
you remember each muscle in extension. Point your fingers so you understand the
room as it relates to you, breath.
/
Arms extended against a window feel:
a heat differential, a material range: wooden bars,
glass panes, maybe mist. The body spends years
unaware of itself, then something stagnates or grows.
As the body announces itself
so too do the rocks, the walls,
the woodland lot. No sooner
materialized then dispersed.
/
As you stretch, mark each sensation in red. Tape string from your red to the storm
cells flashing on television. Take your mat to the yard and lie looking up, counting
threads between animals and rocks. Remember the plates beneath you are
unsteady. Practice balancing.
/
A bird camouflaged in storm-strewn leaves, wings
so brown they hide the beak until it opens to scream.
The names of birds are more than metaphors.
The weight of their bones bear no simile to your bones.
The bones growing inside you are dense,
but safe too, in the barricade of your own.
/
Hold an egg in your palm. Take the yard’s temperature. Close your eyes and
envision hurricanes, trees that shudder. Balance the egg on the tip of your finger.
Balance empathy in meaninglessness.
A yard not designed to be analyzed.
A body not made of felt.
Trace your tongue along the lines of roots breaking ground. Drag a petal across
your spine. Tilt your head to the left. Breathe in skin. Tilt your chin to the right.
/
Accumulations of unraked leaves could become
mulch too whether by mower or time. No need
to rake what the tree released to feed itself. It’s a cycle,
ungainly though it may be. And you’ve stopped
grooming too. Hair grown matted around the wet.
/
Yes, we call this space a time of nest. Give yourself it, this quiet moment. Extend
your arms, your house. What grows in you’s no different than what goes around,
comes around. Repeat this mantra: I am a precipice; we are past the precipice.
/
A blurred blue sky with shots of white
drifting in and out. Each shape momentarily
with a name. What is only filled incidentally,
fills until it bursts. It’s important to make room.
————
Aimee Wright Clow (she/they) is a writer & book designer living in Durham, NC, where they co-curate Poetry and Music at the Octopod. Their work has appeared with journals including Salt Hill, The Bennington Review, Interim, A Gathering of the Tribes, and Ghost Proposal. Her book arts project, A Brief Map of Albany, is available from Utilities Included. aimeewrightclow.com
Graceina Samosir