Between the Heaves of Storm

 
I emerge from a room of candles and coconut oil, my body

no longer mine, but covered with lilac layers

of saliva and ripened sweat.

I am pink stone dissolved in olives,

the kind of color that trembles, a glass of chianti, the wine

in my hand touched by other hands that also touch earthly things.

Under my feet the breath of ancient nations and every size and shape

of mushroom on my tongue, a blessing for the overtures of my body

 

and its beauty and where it leads me. I opened my whole life to find

this quintessence of the sacred and the senseless. Still

the crows cross this road on orange feet,

at night a blue fire burns over the city.

The grass   darkened still   bends to the wind,

and I will find the desert at the end of a road I know by heart.

 

 

 

**title a line from Emily Dickinson’s I heard a Fly buzz (465)

last line from poet Joanna Chen
 
 
 

Rachel Heimowitz is the author of the chapbook, What the Light Reveals (Tebot Bach Press, 2014.) Her work has appeared in Poet Lore, Salamander, Crab Orchard Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her work was recently a finalist for the COR Richard Peterson Prize and she has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. She has just received her MFA from Pacific University. www.rachelheimowitz.com.