by Lake Angela

Scivias

Afraid of losing my irrevocable words, I reach for them in the dirt,  

shredding loaves of green bread with my nails to find the heart,  

shuddering the mass of leaves in procession. I beg the doctor 

to prescribe me a new preposition, as though he has any power 

over the meanings among words. After my burial, you will find 

my intention lost at Lake’s edge. A sharpened blue star—sharper 

than anything conceived by human materials—slices though my skull,  

the coffin, frozen earth—and rises like a fatal flower. Who knows 

with what harm or joy it will bless the next animal who scents it out 

and loves it before swallowing its counterintuitive edges. Beauty is  

counter-indicated for survival, though not for our conception. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lake Angela is a poet, translator, and dancer-choreographer from Lake Erie who develops her work at the confluence of verbal language and movement. She holds a PhD from The University of Texas at Dallas for her inter-semiotic translations of German Expressionist poetry into dance and has her MFA in poetry. She is a medieval mystic and beguine. Her poems and choreography often explore the possibilities in and kinds of darknesses and silences and the expressions of colors, waters, and suffering. Her first full-length book of poetry, Organblooms, was published by FutureCycle Press in January 2020, and her second collection, Words for the Dead, is forthcoming in January of 2021. Her poetry-dance may be found on her website.

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