Poetry, Elizabeth Jesse
1. To Undo A Hex
The core cracks opens for careful observation
of the shattered mirror:
is it mending,
is it a decades long illusion of fracture
is it no longer reflective
but an oxidized green heirloom?
A ritual shedding of veils occurs and then
the blade skitters away from the body:
is it time to heal
is it possible to trust
is it real this time?
Without:
No exit nights
No entrance morning
Memory loss
Poison in hard vials
Throats with strangling hands
Boiled headaches in the eyes
Raw tissue rubbed to habitual pain
Relegated to a secondary need,
a shift finally occurs
slow sliding of ice on ice
melting to reveal a warm love
A love song to undo a hex
II. Growing around grief like a tree against a fence
Here we meet as any other time
Glass screen and blurry tender lines
Drier, frailer with sickness
Breasts with hallowed stretch marks
Write in playful call and response verse for hours
Both of us still in this mind breathing and speaking
Cherubic lips
As you scribed
Comforted with your eternal knowing
Words to fit me
Mountains to hold you And I come down
As you scribed
I the shepherd, with my precious sheep
The green meadows and gracious seascapes
Does my heart break in my mouth?
Does your heart still beat in yours?
III. Love
In congregational mists do the dead come
Wanting for sheets made of soft words
Nothing where the present runs
No, yet a made bed
No, yet a chorus of my life
No, yet still my mouth to your paper hand
Moulting, a solid stench yet—
An image etched of reply
A message in stone for centuries
A side unwilling to be chilled
Miles of carved earth from the bodies buckled to my belt, dragged forward with all the strength I had to prove in a misunderstood method of respective remembrance.
Instead markers of lost time, skewed memory. A damned river lost to drought. Did I love you never save not one pure hope. And you loved me always, for now as evermore.
IV. Confessional
The blade
Pivots
into-against my sternum
The lance Propping me up
I wish you joy
A love song to undo a hex
The words are heavy
But time has made my heart to mean it
I never saw you happy
Let me rejoice in that for you
Elizabeth Jesse (they/them) is a curator and emerging multidisciplinary artist based in Tokyo. Currently, they are experimenting with Butoh and ikebana within their practice. They are engaged in the art and queer scenes within Japan and abroad. Instagram @ritualcharms