Labanotation #9
you a mammal
hired then fired from
a fact-checking
department, caught
writing a letter to
your perpetrator, it鈥檚 all
about the now, you say,
calendar on the wall
stopped at October,
maybe you are tired
of escapes but what
you wouldn鈥檛 do to see
what you never see
in reverse鈥攕kyward rain,
teacup reassembling
and jumping back
onto the counter, weight
of the earth not killing, which you
think means a living
system pre-adapted,
an arrow ceasing to exist
Labanotation #13
………….I became a dancer because I had an accident.
…………………………………….鈥攆rom One Day Pina Asked
Without music they stare at each other and
as if to comfort her, he approaches
and brings along a swarm
and pinches her nose
and rubs her cheeks, her hair
and chews her fingertips
and scratches her head, pulls her shoulders,
and pokes-prods her knees, her skin,
and lifts her up and taps her chin
and slaps her thigh and pats her stomach.
Meanwhile, near the ground, a cloud is tried away, revealing the grid
where you, a grown woman, wear sensible heels.
The phenomena make you both full and empty.
The following week and the next: He brings along a dissimulation and, with beaks, pinch her
nose, peck her cheeks, her hair, and nibble her fingertips and scratch her head, pull her shoulders
and poke and prod her knees and lift her up and tap her chin and prick her thigh and pinhole
her stomach.
Geometry shapes you into compliance, quiet desperation a spiderweb spreading over a face much
like your own.
Soon enough rain will collect in her to slip through.
A clenched jaw will give way to the dotted line.
Perhaps what moves will say: Thank you for letting me see your faces.
Photographic response by聽Nerma Sofi膰
Esther Lee is the author of the poetry collection聽Spit,聽selected for the Elixir Press Poetry Prize and nominated for the PEN Open Book Award and Asian American Literary Awards. She has also published the chapbook,聽Blank Missives聽(Trafficker Press). Her work has appeared in聽Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, Verse Daily, DIAGRAM, Hyphen, The Normal School, Born Magazine, Salt Hill, Lantern Review, and elsewhere. A Kundiman Fellow, she served as Editor-in-Chief for聽Indiana Review聽and her work has received honors, including three Pushcart Prize nominations. Her second poetry manuscript titled, 鈥淐hromogenic,鈥 was a recent finalist for the Kundiman Poetry Prize and National Poetry Series.
Nerma Sofi膰 was born in 1985. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo and works as a photographer and designer.聽
Published on July聽6, 2017.
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