Ray Amorosi

All this havoc just means I’m a poor wizard. Once, I lit three twigs and fanned the smoke, from miles away, into the girl who jumbled scales through my spine. As she vanished I clapped a delighted tune. But not without aches of my own. Did the sack of no echoes fail me? Now, on such a mild curse— boils, sewn eyes, a shrew in the loin my ankle reddens up and eyes me with disdain. Toenails fall off. How far will this go? Poor wizard. Poorly done in. These pangs are power are power as both knees lock up ashamed to move under me.

How glorious is this strange muscle in my mouth. Child’s tease, lips’ balm, baton of speech unless it’s tied. What’s forgotten is on the tip. Sides slip out the truth. The root is how far a kiss can go. One can lose it when guilty. Be lashed by another’s. Feel it twisting over rooky woods and wordless hear it swinging in a bell, sliding through a groove or placed firmly in a cheek. Beware it should be held most often for most often a forked one has no friend.

Whatever the cost I pay up at the minnow pools. I don’t know anything of the misery of these trapped fish, or the failure of the marsh I’m so hidden. Up above is the island with its few houses facing the ocean God walks with anyone there. I often slosh through the low tide to a sister unattached to causeways. It’s where deer mate then lead their young by my house to fields, again up above me. Pray for me. Like myself be lost. An amulet under your chest, a green sign of the first rose you ever saw, the first shore. Then I wash my horse, dogs, me behind the barn. Only the narrow way leads home.