3 Poems Shira Dentz

Babble


Suddenly I’m let out.
Something
first: images
rinse me in their saliva
the way a cat licks itself clean,
section by section.
It’s a matter of hygiene to know who you are.
Did you notice someone pluck
a few air-dried things
off the clothesline for you, out back?
A barely noticeable line flickers past.
Morning sprouts heads and tails,
as do cut earthworms.







Ovule


A sunflower seed
hulled,
a tear

pinioned between two fingers;

the shade of barked tree,
bone.

•

You have a tip like the citron
pointed during Succoth to the four directions:
two poles, sunrise, and sunset.

A tip like a nipple, bird beak, tooth,
but I know it’s your navel,

and where an umbilical root might have rested
along the center of your underbelly

is now a crook;

if you were a boat,
passengers would sit in this scar.







Ice

How to empty:
stuff your hand as into a chicken, removing giblets.
or slip your hand as if you’re wet clay on a wheel.

Ice on windows,
wedding dress swatches, lace,
bread, rice, pasta, potato,
tear-shaped throat drops.
Bright sun on houses,
you’d think warm.
Sun moves to the right, legs.
Light a fly.
Can’t see it circle anymore,
shadows spreading.
When I finish the laundry
in the scheme of things,
how like ants we are
Light carousels round the apt.
No sex,
the white of no desire.