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Little Spells: Poems by Maya Jewell Zeller

Maya Jewell Zeller

Ship by Carrie DeBacker
Ship by Carrie DeBacker

Little Spell with Chest X-ray

sweet girl made of dust & water/ please leave jewelry at home/ wear open, loose clothing/ this will not hurt a bit/ possibly we will ask you to don this gown/ you are going to experience a small dose of ionizing radiation/ you will not feel it at all/ but possibly you will see the way we see/ in shades of gray/ possibly the plate will be cold/ like the ocean floor/ we will finish quickly/ like a blossom opening/ on a beach/ on a very warm planet

Little Spell for Diagnostics

What the doctor says / is an echo / when
you’re off in your mind field /full of light
that saw too the dinosaurs / when you’re
down in the deepest/ recesses of your ocean
/ skimming for blooming tubers / with your
head lamp / when you host a birthday for
the fossilized trilobites / when you invite in
skin cells that gather in the crevasse of deep
sea / what the doctor says /echoes off your
sonar detection / your blubber / no
protection from human worlds / what you
swallowed was impossible / what you
swallowed/ was only the beginning of your
body / possibly rotting like a processed
bagel/ on the beach the birds devouring you/
the birds your head a drum of seeds/
shattering into the everything / Someday
someone will see you & say oh, so many
glittering suns!! / didn’t you know they used
to be on fire / far away, long ago

Little Spell with Chest X-ray (2)

under the epidermis we are gelatinous
like an aloe vera but without healing;
the science of an x-ray makes that all
invisible on the screen the delta
of lung is erased as is the coffin of heart
if the whole universe were between my skin
and my lung all the beasts shelled
and scaled winged insects feathered
parents their beaks various degrees
of useful if all the plunging necklines
of volcanoes if all the celebrated wealth
of the unlogged forests if even the ocean
came up empty there you’d never see it
& never feel the pain of it & you’d be able
to go without reading the newspaper
clippings for the end of the world

Little Spell for Addressing Turtles

formed in the Cretaceous when chalk too was forming/ the metaphor of you is old/ older than immigrants in America/ older than the appropriation of indigenous imagery/ turtle, let it be said/ I do not condone that appropriation/ but I do want to be turtle-like, your safe little tank/ or your big old polluted ocean/ full of so much plastic/ still even there you don’t know what’s coming/ O little friend/ please eat this wild chalk dinner/ I have mashed so lovingly/ into a fat flame of overkill/ so you don’t meet the seamless morning of death/ O you who descend from the lizard-like body/ your shell useless for so long/ may I please crawl in there with you/ to live through the dark/ it’s going to be so dark out here / already I find myself finding ways to cope/ how can any one of us, shell-less as we are/ O, you small-brained but wise-celled/ see also: teenage mutant ninja/ see also: Gary Snyder, Kay Ryan/ see also: half the families went extinct/ what a beautiful carapace you have, mr. tiny head/ ms. buries-her-eggs on beaches/ clever you of the possible Platonic shadows/ see also: slow as, steady as/ see also: “and the hare”/ you’ve got all our numbers—200 million years of them/ see also: “-neck sweater,” the sort we all wore in the 70s/ see also: inspiration for Pokemon/ ever since I learned it was the pulled-into-shell conjugation of pocket monster/ I’ve been so much more on board

little spell with chest x-ray (3)

well it’s the future/ so far we made it/ here on the flanking ridges of the Yakima River / a sternum full of melt-off & these basalt-lunged canyon edges fanning/ full of sage brush/ winter bones/ one buttercup/

in the back seat a tiger & a snake/ create a sound track/ the diagnosis is strong/ for the wild & wind mills/ those tiny bunnies huddling from hawks/ the big horn sheep &

sweet girl the water will keep raving/ sweet girl you cannot stop the ice caps melting/ so count the train cars full of coal/ O eat your pile of carrot sticks/ & make your two week plan/ in which you stick a spade into rocky earth/ sweet girl this dirt is so hard/ & you are so much made of deep history & rapidly aging chromosomes

& lichen, bright as graffiti —

Spells for Addressing Animals, a collaboration Maya Jewell Zeller and Carrie DeBacker, will be published by Entre Ríos Books in October 2017.
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Maya Jewell Zeller

Maya Jewell Zeller is the author of Rust Fish and YESTERDAY, THE BEES. She serves as poetry editor for Scablands Books, as fiction editor for Crab Creek Review, and as Assistant Professor for Central Washington University. Learn more at mayajewellzeller.com; follow Maya on Twitter @MayaJZeller.

Author: Maya Jewell Zeller Tags: poetry Category: Poetry April 14, 2017

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Comments

  1. Fred LaMotte says

    April 28, 2017 at 9:04 am

    Re-read. Touching my forehead to the earth, your body.

    Reply
  2. Rochelle Jewel Shapiro says

    April 20, 2017 at 3:14 pm

    It’s like speaking in tongues, but I get every word and carry it with me. How I would LOVE to collaborate!

    Reply
  3. Fred LaMotte says

    April 16, 2017 at 9:31 pm

    O I am in love with this poetic voice from the ancient body of the soul!

    Reply
    • Maya Jewell Zeller says

      April 16, 2017 at 9:41 pm

      Fred, thank you for your kind words and for spending your time with my work.

      Reply
  4. Sam Silva says

    April 14, 2017 at 5:17 am

    Brilliant! Who was that famous poet…? Marianne Moore?

    Reply
  5. Sam Silva says

    April 14, 2017 at 5:16 am

    Brilliant!

    Reply

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Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

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