No, nothing, no thing, no where—
the o of no blinks open
I think that you think that I think
too much about grief
It’s not only mine—we’re in the same current
You won’t hear it blazing always in the unprocessed
wind under the voice recording
I wear my nerve halo, a handful of seeds, a breakdown
in the blood-brain barrier
It’s come to this: the interstate with star-shaped
plants and mile markers that multiply one’s belonging
Can you hear the low pulse tree-growth consuming the fence?
Books are states of consciousness, a record—
What won’t finally kill you, you eat its tongue
Holy I’ll make the alphabet for interrupters, malcontents
Holy is the person who digs the person out the rubble into the grave
About you: weather will taste metallic in the overnight
visuals, something lightdark, slick-liver-wet
Put a whisper into a jar, a war
trots out of your chiaroscuro head
Copyright © 2024 by Carolina Ebeid. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 9, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.