Two Poems

SYMPATHETIC MAGIC

Let me tell you about this magic world    surge of snowsound    small
Birds streak across the sky   First   you must bury what you brought with you
You must bury  Find    the light and find the mirror You are not outside
The astrocytes     the combination   We have now created   a language together

Slow winter snake with the tail cut off    if you follow the trail of blood
You’ll enter a house    and find in a bloodsoaked bed a woman   missing a foot
Peek not    through the keyhole    lest ye be vexed   lest ye be hexed
The mistake of looking   is what makes the ones you love    disappear

I wind the twine around the twigs   make arms   make legs   little body
Little head    Carry it in my pocket   name it    to make her love me
Yes I am nimble-finger blessed   Yes I am starting at the start  This is how
I came apart   Now I move every day   under stars   we know nothing about

Now I am reminded    I will never know the names    of all the people
My father removed from this earth    in the hour of the wolf     I am
Reminded    I am a child of this place   We are all molecule synapse starlight
Mouse tooth     Please please please    please    please       don’t shoot

Darwin puts a cup of worms on the piano    to see how they react
As his wife plays Chopin   Nothing    I burn you burn we all burn together
Twist the warp   wind the weft   light the touchpaper     Bring water
It’s not what they call you    grandfather says     it’s what you answer to

Let us swim now   and be pulled under only to emerge from black sand
With glittering   mica in our mouths       smooth stones on our eyes

______________

Carolann Caviglia Madden’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, World Literature Today, Interim, The Stinging Fly, Nimrod International Journal, and elsewhere. She is a Navy brat, the granddaughter of immigrants, and earned her PhD in Poetry and Folklore, along with a Certificate in Translation Studies, at the University of Houston in 2021. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Letter to DiasporaNational University of Ireland, Maynooth.