dear ones,
all day and all night, the scent of jasmine scratched our nostrils like bees, generating a pleasant and curious sensation. the Mediterranean beamed blue cantaloupe.
i plunged my hands into the water and they came out smelling like iron, like blood.
Venice.
on seemingly every street, mother mary cradled jesus in a rock. beneath each statue: ave maria.
when i walked through the Jewish ghetto— built in March 1516— i saw the ghost of a man who lost his arm in a fishing accident. he brought me a silver kiddush cup. etched onto the cup was a ship with a single billowing sail.
i held hands with the past.
i let go.
overhead, the swifts smashed their whirling bodies into small stone cracks, calling out with sharp orphaned shrieks. the swifts circled window panes and chased one another in rapid circles. i joined the bird carousel and read the heavens.
nearby boats gurgled through waterways, sending waves to smack against marble streets. Mediterranean spit. the paintings from the biennale glowed green and men shouted over motors, which churned the waters all around us into a frothing hum.
yours in poems,
emet
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poems:
The Ark: Self-Portrait as Aphrodite Using Her Dress for a Sail; Robin Coste Lewis
Mother Nothing; Elizabeth Metzger
The Last letter of My Body; Alex Averbuch (translated from the Russian)
events:
I have a handful of poetry readings and workshops taking place this month, both in Germany and in Poland. Information linked below:
Carrying Two Watermelons Under One Arm (Berlin, Germany), May 16th at 19h
Khan Aljanub Reading for Palestine (Berlin, Germany), May 17th at 19h
Writing the Queer Body (Lublin, Poland), May 25th at 12h
Poetry without Words (Lublin, Poland), May 26th at 16h