- Baptize you again.
Name you in a braid of webs
Not Death, rather
Call you Insane
Tawny
Bundle of fifes
Flume
Lamp
Palm—why shouldn’t I?
Make you new in rainbows
Of the soul, build your
Name on possibles
Sing them as they rot:
Straw
Doe
Null
Sand
Why shouldn’t I?
- Dally over my hour. Before
You take me, take your time.
Ethereal, look me over with care
Let me know you earthy, fair
A pair of hardy women
In their hardest hour.
Take me without pity
Yet in fullness and forever
As earth’s females do.
And, in knowing you
I’ll make myself
Flesh and possession
As men do.
- Appurtenance, I bear you:
Mutant dorsum, death.
For millennia I’ve
Known about you
But know you not.
We are the consorts
Of time
Death, dear one
I’ll kiss your flank
Your teeth
A glowing road, your fate
And mine. I ride you. I try.
- From the deep, gleaming
You come
Or as ligature, dissembling,
Coming darkly
Or licking, clingy
You come from on high
Or from horseshoes
Memorious
You call yourself
Mute or girlish
Come from woe
Or regal on the stair
Ascending
Beloved
Foul
Haughty
Welcome.
- Turgid-little
Death of mine
How do you come?
Tangled. In the knots.
In a corridor of cords.
How do you come?
By snail or seed
In sepia, in stinging rose
How should I picture you?
Pointed
Stabbing like a stake
Or sweetly licking
How will you take me?
- Rusted trace
Profile sans drachma
Pointed crest
Upon the worn seal
Unfathomed hollow
In the field.
A mote, a nothing
Suspended on water
Contraction’s flash:
My love, I know
It’s you.
Julia Powers received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale University and was awarded a 2019 PEN/Heim translation grant for her work on a volume of Hilda Hilst's poetry.
