EMERGING ARTISTS & WRITERS
MAYA OWEN
POEM IN THE KEY OF
Night. A strangled cry
Among the foxgloves, I—
Pocketing the nearest bit
Of silverware (the tongue, the glint
Of the eye, body
Spooned in body—)
For a weapon, found
My voice—
*
My voice
*
A bird in a dome of glass
Its caught light
Its improbable weather
Trembling like animals
In the nonsense poem
Of their sleep. My voice
An aria of wings
Mocking transcription. Mocking the
Mezzo-soprano. My voice
A goldfinch trilling among
New blossom. My voice, a bird-of-
Paradise, coruscating
Like a low Heaven. My voice
A rasp-throated crow; its feathers
Vexing blue & black
*
I broke
The glass. My voice
Broke like new blossom. Like
Strange birds. The shock
Of sudden murmuration. I held
Out my arm like a falconer. Now
& then, my voice
Returns with some new jewel (—a
Beetle or a bright fruit—) glistening
Like unplumbed language
Or a foreign dialect
In its beak
THE DARK POEM
PART I
THE SUSSURANT DARK
1. Things i have heard spoken in the dark
2. Things i have spoken to &
3. Of it
PART II
THE DARK PROCESS
in the poem
of the dark i write & write
the multifarious bird-likeness
of the heart
in the dark Changing
a black plume
feathered through
the backbone
the slick blue quill
of the tongue
scrawling in the dark:
*
Dear Changeling
in the dark
the rhythms of sex
are the rhythms of G-d
& of the heart’s
own aperture
fluttering open
like a butterfly
-knife
clanging shut
like a terrible
church-bell—
!! !! !! !!
*
& in the dark
-room of memory
the silver photograph
of your face
has been marred
somehow half-
devoured
in the dark
room of your face
memory, clarity
of my own
has been marred
somehow half-
devoured…
PART III
THE DARK SYNTAX
Walk back with me Through autumn rain
Vermiculate needlework Damasking the dusk
Walk back to me. Easy As muscle memory
In your mouth— A word. Old dark
Magic. A small voice Aching through
A rusted phonograph In the dark. Decipherable
Only in my heart’s pidgin To your soul’s creole
Maya Owen will never get over The Library of Alexandria.