suszette

I move Like the deer in the forest I see you before you See me We are like the moist rose Which opens alone When I’m dreaming I linger by the pool of many seasons Suddenly it is night Time passes like the shadows That were not There when you lifted your head Dreams leave their hind tracks Something red and warm to go by So it is the hunters of this world Close in.

Alice Coltrane (born: August 27, 1937) at The Monastic Trio recording and photo shoot, c. 1968.

Physical Therapy Franny Choi   Ask, first, what your smallest body parts require to sing again: coconut oil for your hair’s dry ends, camphor for the earlobes, rosehip kneaded into fingertips with fingertips. Grapeseed will feed most hungers of the skin. But if even your bones cry January, dip your sharpest knife in a jar of raw honey. Lather it on your thighs, making circles, making certain not to confuse this ache for that other, the one that keeps pulling you to the earth, the one question you still can’t say out loud. Recite instead the names of trees: sumac, sweet birch, slippery elm. Take your palm to the wild place under your chin and count: vein, artery, chokecherry, weeping willow, until your xacto knife pulse slows, holds. Let your mouth fill with gold, almonds, zinneas. Then: soften.

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In an abecedarian poem, each line begins with successive letters of the alphabet.

Also: + VI. Wisdom: The Voice of God, Mary Karr + Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell, Marty McConnell + Heartbeats, Melvin Dixon

More by Franny Choi: + Catastrophe Is Next to Godliness + The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

Today in:

Helen Beard (UK 1971)

Lovers Rock (2022)