Sophia Naz
Talisman
Talisman
Talisman
1. Fleur de Sel
the first memory was a white
blindness a braille of
salt that water leaves
behind like a wayward lover making
a trail of tell-tale deserts
in his path a slow burning writes
scrolls on your cheeks a garland
of tiny skulls holds
the dark ocean you crossed
to become this flower
2. Dispersal
the windshield is
a cinema raindrops
patrons throngs arriving
leaving arriving I cannot
look not now not
ever says a muffled
voice in the back before
the shatter all rain
begins as rime hexagon
prism seed spell snow
grows in your sky
womb until crystal
succumbs
3. Zephyr
it grows against all odds, a weed
wherever water can gain a foothold, a blade
of grass or a lone dandelion moaning
in the crack of asphalt dawn a flower
in the night with no windows a sky that shudders
and shutters all its stars in grey
cloud burqas it is – and you are – this
and also that – an adamant
agate – buraq – the zephyr
breathing on your little
finger while the chain
still dangles, smiling from
the unlatched door
4. Henna-fish
confluent as the lines of your hands once
were, clenched tightly as you struggled
against the itch the urge to open
your palms to the skies and catch
the next rain of thought henna-fish
will be lost and never found
again on these tracks there must
be borders or else chaos ruins
the filigree she warned squeezing
drops of clove tea over the drying
islands I told her I was writing
a labyrinth without maps she said
everything is a thread that unravels
5. Saturn’s Rings
my skin and yours are borders
where the stories lie sleeping
curled up like cats in the solemn
afternoons of our mating what is
left of these shrines are just
grimy circumambulations
Saturn’s rings on my bathtub
of nine lives time and
time again I slit
my mind in this
brine until we are
one my skin as
wrinkled as your
ancient hide
and seek
6. Archeoseti
I am Tethys’ whorling
ellipsis, the kiss
of marine phosphorescence
a swarm of swaying
baleen whose prayers are
teeth of endless rosaries
whispering ‘tamtu , tamtu’
into the deep indigo that
neither day nor night
can catch
Talisman
1. Fleur de Sel
the first memory was a white
blindness a braille of
salt that water leaves
behind like a wayward lover making
a trail of tell-tale deserts
in his path a slow burning writes
scrolls on your cheeks a garland
of tiny skulls holds
the dark ocean you crossed
to become this flower
2. Dispersal
the windshield is
a cinema raindrops
patrons throngs arriving
leaving arriving I cannot
look not now not
ever says a muffled
voice in the back before
the shatter all rain
begins as rime hexagon
prism seed spell snow
grows in your sky
womb until crystal
succumbs
3. Zephyr
it grows against all odds, a weed
wherever water can gain a foothold, a blade
of grass or a lone dandelion moaning
in the crack of asphalt dawn a flower
in the night with no windows a sky that shudders
and shutters all its stars in grey
cloud burqas it is – and you are – this
and also that – an adamant
agate – buraq – the zephyr
breathing on your little
finger while the chain
still dangles, smiling from
the unlatched door
4. Henna-fish
confluent as the lines of your hands once
were, clenched tightly as you struggled
against the itch the urge to open
your palms to the skies and catch
the next rain of thought henna-fish
will be lost and never found
again on these tracks there must
be borders or else chaos ruins
the filigree she warned squeezing
drops of clove tea over the drying
islands I told her I was writing
a labyrinth without maps she said
everything is a thread that unravels
5. Saturn’s Rings
my skin and yours are borders
where the stories lie sleeping
curled up like cats in the solemn
afternoons of our mating what is
left of these shrines are just
grimy circumambulations
Saturn’s rings on my bathtub
of nine lives time and
time again I slit
my mind in this
brine until we are
one my skin as
wrinkled as your
ancient hide
and seek
6. Archeoseti
I am Tethys’ whorling
ellipsis, the kiss
of marine phosphorescence
a swarm of swaying
baleen whose prayers are
teeth of endless rosaries
whispering ‘tamtu , tamtu’
into the deep indigo that
neither day nor night
can catch
Talisman
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