Marie Ponsot
The tide of nicotine pulls back
taking with it the catch of endless past nights
a wax skein
leaving in its wake
the nude night face of an unfamiliar city.
Friends in my dreams
giving me shelter in the meadows,
magazine in the bathtub,
You in my dreams, wandering the grasses, on the red apps, beautiful
Searching for “the potato of unsupervised exception”
The dead in my dreams, approaching me at the wedding like old friends
Like this poet I never studied with, offering help, a blessing, putting her head in my
hands like a tired child
Then on top of the hill I stir
honey away from the plastic abstractly lidded wat of water,
Other women approach me, holding sheaths of blades
Tell me of an old art
they must hide from the world
where in hallways of stained glass they
made each other levitate
just for fun.
Midnight Sun
That’s the song I dreamed we wrote together
I told to the stranger who was my soul-in-arms
In a dream as I looked over my shoulder
At the orange moonsun rising above the couch
On a hill with many sides.
How do I get there? In daytime my soul
Sleeps in the soil under the floorboards
Stirring only at the rare birdsong
A ray of daysun piercing the marble like a golden vein.
Slumber on, soul
This world is not for you
I know why you hide away from its incomprehensible cruelties
Why should you wander the streets, nude bloody-footed bride.
You did it for years.
Stay where I can find you
In dreams
Fae garden bar full of lights that turns into
A silent midnight backyard
I’m expelled from like a bird that strayed into a church.
Stay on the remote hills,
Come to me
Fatal notebook in the center of a clearing,
Stranger to myself
Welcoming me to myself
With a song we wrote together in the future.
Ana Božičević is a poet, translator, teacher, and occasional singer. Born in Croatia, she moved to New York in 1997 and attended Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her second book, Rise in the Fall (2013) won a Lambda Literary Award. Her latest collection is New Life from Wave Books. The author’s website states: “Božičević continually greets herself as a stranger, reminding us that in some respects every poem is a love poem.”
