Curious and Counting
How do I get in your atmosphere?
Tell me about your signs, look me planetarily
—those Venuses in your eyes?
There was no thought after you
and I wrote it down. Wandered
to the wailing with my back exposed.
My kind of Sunday, your knees
buffalo and kicking up plains.
We go sockless for beauty.
Ribbons unwind bring us to tied,
I’m at your symmetry, remembering
all your digits and your lucky number nine.
Copyright © 2022 by Arisa White. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 25, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I came across this poem in a journal from October 2016. I was amused with its music and strange imagery—so intimate and precise and resonant with historical and religious referents. The poem invites you to be curious and to enjoy the sensations and wonder that it evokes.”
—Arisa White
Arisa White
Arisa White is the author of Who’s Your Daddy (Augury Books, 2021). A Cave Canem fellow, White serves on the board of directors for Foglifter and Nomadic Press, and is an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at Colby College.