September 17, 2024

Note: This week’s poem was composed of words found in a NY Times Spelling Bee puzzle.

javelin

You were alive, that much
you knew, the weathervane twirling.

Still, the jail of inane conversation. 
or any valve twisted closed. The hum of avian want.

How to lean, casually, against the bars,
lava in your veins. 

A memory of Nana in a jean jacket,
her mouth the color of a vial of blood.

“Never order vanilla,” she’d say, braiding
your hair like a villanelle. You grimaced as she pulled.

Hunger is a lineal thing. Bodies anneal
to other bodies. The heart is an anvil.

However alien, consider escape 
a venial impulse, not some villain allele.

You are not landlocked. You are never
landlocked, bound by nape or navel.

Live like a javelin, throw
like you mean it, nail the landing.