Melissa Eleftherion
Two Poems
New Biota
To be natural & occurring
Internal order of a structure
Fine-grained translucence
Some failure
Salt carvings for the landmine
Geyser what cherishes
Salt all the bodies
Salt the wounds
To purify & extract
We are magicking through
Equinox of vortices
We salt our way
Let the coarse granules
Mix & cleanse
Let the clear stones
Light a path
We coax & glide
We move through
tear-drop shape
opening
We suffuse
We crackle in the mixture
Fold in like new
biota—
or erosion—crystals
rising in one fluid
wash—we
effervesce with
its life we
heal
There is no separation
We maintain & coalesce
We part & whole
Clover & cup
Justice
We’re coming for you//dizzy with sweat & consequence//
Disoriented and still reeling//Our collective body politic
A dull quick-moving consumption//alive with the pain and suffering of its people
Its monotonous movement over the city//how crowd culture grows like a festering boil
rancid with its own racist heat //its own clamor for the oyster
how the snapping conch aches to trap the vile many in its pearlescent teeth //its grit
sealing its ardor//the crowd is a dull roar//but we are unifying we are
gathering//strength and you won’t see us coming//
—Submitted on 11/21/2020
Melissa Eleftherion is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), little ditch (above/ground press, 2018), and trauma suture (above/ground press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Entropy, Flag+Void, Lunch Ticket, Pith, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and other journals. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Eleftherion lives in Northern California, where she manages the Ukiah Library, teaches creative writing, and curates the LOBA Reading Series. Online at apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.
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