Places
Sandra Marchetti
I’m hoping one day to climb through my mind:
around donut-shaped crooks and a cavity-corridor,
to divide the world between those lobes.
I have always wanted to climb it,
for my toe to stick within the slipping loops
then grip again, like an octopus nearing coral
slipping its jointless arm around it and then
shrinking, shrinking into the sea.
Dillard says she can see columns of air, not
just the insects that live in them. I see the tiny
roses on my bed sheet—thousands—they might
as well be eggs of the octopus, or those holding
within the cargo sacs of the insects. I see
the roses sewn into foursquare and know
the brain can multiply, bring into being square
meters of light, or a just a pattern that leads
back toward no edge.
A rose blooms and lowers its neck, slipping
its scents for the last time. Anxious for sleep,
I fall to traversing again,
I don’t move: only the fingerless slips,
the soul, ribbons past.
~~~~~
A finalist in Gulf Coast’s 2011 Poetry Prize and Phoebe’s 2009 Greg Grummer Poetry Contest, Sandra Marchetti also recently published two poems in Phoebe and three in Nolos. Currently she is the “Featured Poet” in Spurt Literary Journal's inaugural issue. She has also written poetry reviews for PIF Magazine and has poetry forthcoming in The River Oak Review and Ohio State's The Journal.