Spells. Annie Finch

me the way the seas’ warm sea will; spend me.

      Move your sea-warm come to me; will with me; spend

      tender sounds, warning me the way of the seas, the seas.

      Tongues sharp as two wind-whipped trees will question.

      Tongues sharp as two wind-whipped trees will question.

      (Skin or nerve waiting and heart will answer.

      Skin or nerve waiting and heart will answer).

      Question will answer two tongues and, or will:

      heart sharp as nerve trees; waiting, skin-whipped wind.

      Brim your simple hand over where the skin is.

      Brim your simple hand over where the skin is.

      Wish again, whenever hair and breath come closer.

      Wish again, whenever hair and breath come closer.

      Closer, again, whenever; brim where your skin is;

      hair, wish and breath over the simple hand, come.

      Spend come warning me, whenever simple sounds will, will;

      move your question. Answer your heart-sharp tender

      sea-warm will with me. Way of the seas, the seas!

      Where skin-whipped nerve trees wind over waiting tongues,

      brim closer to me. Again the skin, as wish,

      and two of the breath, hand and hair, or come, is.

      WILD YEASTS

       For Marta

      Rumbling a way up my dough’s heavy throat to its head,

      seeping the trailed, airborne daughters down into the core,

      bubbles go rioting through my long-kneaded new bread;

      softly, now, breath of the wildest yeast starts to roar.

      My hands work that peaked foam, push insides out into the light,

      edge shining new sinews back under the generous arch

      that time’s final sigh will conclude. (Dry time will stretch tight

      whistling stops of quick heat through my long-darkened starch.)

      How could I send quiet through this resonant, strange, vaulting roof

      murmuring, sounding with spores and the long-simple air,

      and the bright free road moving? I sing as I terrace a loaf

      out of the hands it has filled like a long-answered prayer.

      Now the worshipping savage cathedral our mouths make will lace

      death and its food, in the moment that refracts this place.

      EARTH GODDESS AND SKY GOD

      You haven’t formed me. I’m a monster still.

      Then give me your body. Give it to me in rain.

      Look up and fill me. I am too dark to stain.

       You haven’t held me. I hold apart my will

      Spread dryness through me. I have a night to fill

       in high heat-speckled waves, apart from where

      I will come down. I have nothing to share

      with breath. I will give it back. There is one to kill,

      one to renew, and one to persuade to weep.

      My night holds everything except for sleep.

      CONVERSATION

      Edward Weston’s “Squash,” 1936

      “Delve for me, delve down, delve past your body, crowned

      by its hidden stem, like a shadowy alarm;

      see how you vanish past our dark-shed charm,

      throat over throat, ankle to ankle, bound

      in our different arches, summer-nicked and browned

      interlocking rings in the chain of wrist and arm.”

      “Lie for me, lie. I want to feel you turn.

      Mark out the summer’s bending month and learn

      to cradle the concrete ground till it softens. Stay.

      Measure me past my stem. Though your shadows churn,

      close yourself over. Encompass me like clay.”

      CALENDARS

       A poem in chants for four voices:

      Demeter

       Chorus

      Persephone

       Hades

       In the winding

       of the vine

       our voices stretch

       from us and twine —

      No, going into the waiting places

      is not easy. Flowers fade there.

       around the year’s

       fermented wine —

      Mostly, it’s surrender of wanting,

      or the fear that a flame will be dampened—

      or that everything warm will come rushing

      over me with reproach—or that endless

      needles could be ranged in the tunnel—

      or that my bare feet would be slippery—

       Yellow. Fall roars

       down to the ground,

       loud, in the leafy sun that pours

       liquid through doors.

       Yellow, the leaves go down

      or that once I’m down in that darkness

      someone outside will block off the entrance—

      Touches of gold stipple the branches,

      promising weeks of time —

       Thread with Me

       My lover, when you riddle with me—

       reddening slowly, then suddenly free,

       turned like a key

      Oh! the falling flowers have caught me

      by dipping yellow, purple towards the hunger—

       —the hard, the intricate dark

       (I hear the notes of your words

      ring for me cool as the birds,

       my lover—

       through the long year’s

       fermenting wine

      her thin stems turning, held to be—lost—

       my lover, when you thread with me

       Now you are uncurled and cover