Poems

S E P T I M A

By Sara Deniz Akant

SHE who wipes my Atticus chamber – "hey Septima
dear, my dark heli-bug" –       that's okay, I'm just sinking
                     in my little peeing-yard

          this left-handed mass
was never authorized a place, stranger to itself
and to others on the isle      I don't attempt the castle
                     – well that would be a waste, not only
of mine eies
but also of my cell, its structure-cleaning time


I'm the beast that wrote the note              constantly
in the moment of its own act of becoming, forgetting
what it was when what it was was merely swamp – a hand –
a blunted mind of nothing but red aster – the bird-like
flesh of old saw dust
                                             my hands
          they decorate a dungeon
with a bunch of purple heather                    my hands are as empty
                                                        as the day I was born

                                 just a network of organs
entangled in bone       a small globe, your sphere – "hey
Septima, dear" – or what Septima took :

her mind, her glyph, her shore




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