on lamenting silence
Amy Bobeda
We tie a red string from one pinkie to the other
beat our fingers closer
then further
apart
la lengua de las mariposas
licks our strings.
Syncopating we
blur our nature bends, cleaves
into this quiet exercise of patience.
Sadness is a lust for language she says each vein the color of please
we beat our wings tied
from blood and belly the string
innate animates; a loop being forms–
feeding, refeeding our cycle of one
hand––heart––string––hand––heart
all at once, self-sustenance.
She dances a rhythmic tension,
shapes begin in clouds, snaking emptiness into sound weather
a rhythm circles
hand––heart––string––hand––heart
words rattle from wings
language gaps between fibers.
The monarch butterfly creates a collective womb that is invisible: the creative capacity of collective birthing. –James O’Hern
Amy Bobeda is a multimedia artist in Colorado finishing her MFA at Naropa University. She is the founder of Wisdom Body Collective, @wisdom_body_collective, an arts collective rooted in embodying the sacred feminine. Her work can be read in Humble Pie, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, We'll Never Have Paris, and elsewhere. Her work is rooted in menstruation, myth, and embodiment. @amybobeda on Twitter.
the lady of the lake has iMessage and u left your read receipts on
Jaime Marvin
hey im here, come outside
i’m ur knight in shining ardor
i updated my software just to text u
with a new emoji whose cheeks are cuppable moons (like yrs
& i mean that) + a pink flush squeezed around the eyes
like orange juice wrung by strong palms in the morning,
(w/ u still asleep, i’d watch your chest, then the sun, rise)
I can’t think of anything more erotic than that
+ 3 red hearts hovering round a floating head
tho the red is softer than ur supposing
sweet feeling will do that
the way this thing works,
I save u, ur the 1
who needs saving- i’m sure of that
nd am only explaining cuz u don’t seem to realize
you summoned me, sword, shield n all, in my old lake bed
I’d been laying w/eyes salted shut, hair alluviumed dense, I heard you
tugging on your heart, throbbing thru all the water that I keep taking in-
I saw the emptiness (in you!) that I can eat up, swallow down, I wrap my legs
and arms across the whole of your body, and I am not enough yet but I will be soon,
and all time is happening at once anyway, you didn’t know that either, but we r already
together
and swimming
you always tell me you’re a fish god, s son of the whole sea, when we tangle bedsheets and I laugh, I hope
it sounds like bells pealing on the air, i’d like to
enchant u but I won’t try, I need you
to come when I summon, on your own, see
to know
(and I’m bad at swimming, barely keep afloat,
i take on too much panic, but anyway,
)
my phone buzzes, and if it’s you
I’m ready and if it’s not
well, I’ll just
Jaime Marvin is a writer, comedian, and tarot reader based in Brooklyn, New York. She has work upcoming in Sublunary Review, and is currently plotting a novel about high school cross country, teen witches, and pasta-related angst. You can find her compulsively rewatching Practical Magic, and if that fails, she is also sometimes found at @jaime_marvin on Twitter or at jaime-marvin.com.