By Alise Versella
God Give Me Forever
The cold break of day The burst of chlorine—ice-sting against just-shaved legs I have never been one to jump into things I wonder if I will always let every option weigh heavily against me that I simply throw every option away Drown beneath the deep. An ocean is the question, “What comes next?” I see my feet at bottoms of pools and do not swim to the other end I do not go where I cannot float I do not test my buoyancy that one deep breath in the lungs could hold me I know all my boundaries I splash around in the shallow end until my thumbs start pruning Do I stay too long? Above with the aid of some pool noodle to keep me afloat I could simply dive under and hold my nose I have grown accustomed to Doing everything I have to with one hand One time I tried swimming out to a sandbank I choked on the Atlantic When I can’t find the edge of things, my hands seek out a railing I never learned to swim Should I let it Make me barnacle encrusted to the piling Anchor in the sand, iron rusting? If I can’t see forever Is that enough Reason to stop believing That it could ever be mine for the taking?
American Ink
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A Spell To Love Again
Take one rose quartz and slip it Under the pillow lay it next to your ex-lover’s hair In the morning Dip your toes in the black pool You did not have cleaned before winter of this past year Swim beneath the burning sugar of one too many crème brûlées And taste the blood under your teeth From your split cuticles The bitter chipped pink paint Crush the clippings of old photographs by pestle in mortar Crush them like chicken bones to broth in soup Drink of the past and watch it leave your body from your dancing pores as you sweat How else would you dispel of pain and perhaps regret? Take the rock in your shoe and suck on it Siphon out the mineral taste of it Bury your acrylic nails in the soil under a full moon Come high tide you may take to the sea And the tide will teach you To love the ocean of yourself Before the wave catapults you to a ready shore With open arms To the warm sand No a warm hand No the sun as it wakes your drunk ass up Naked next to some random man But the sheets are cool linen across the angry red landscape of skin the razor keeps burning because God forbid you have stubbly legs There are no spells to teach you how to love again There are just tequila nights And lipstick And maybe the afternoon turns into evening and you simply say thank you goodnight and you think please kiss me please call me again this Saturday.
Comet Girl
To see the moon hang in my eye For the myths of the constellations to bloodspot across my arms and etch their lines My heart Still thundering With the fury of the mountain that longed for the rush of the sea With the howl of the coyote echoing between The bones of these hips That will bear only poems My God how I want to live Like the last great asteroid hurtling to obliterate the globe God grant me the comet all tail flaming gold Let me die out with cosmic immediacy That bright vibrant thing Before the end of humanity.
At War With the Immensity
I want to write a poem to the children digging trenches in the sand Shovel-ready soldiers prepared against the land I want some madman to hold my hand And stand With me at attention at the battling mouth of the sea While the thrashing crashing bashes against me I want to write a poem for the children who laugh tirelessly Who do not cry when the waves begin retreating Who know the belly of the ocean Is not a portal to another dimension They are safe inside the shells of their pink little bodies Like a mollusk sucking, sucking I suck salt from my thumb My toes become Buried like seeds And there will be broken shells under my nails for weeks The sun will stain freckles across my nose and I will peel at the shoulders I want to write a poem to those children before they grow older And the waters become something sent to capsize them I want them to remember this fight again and again The trenches they built with shovel in sand And the castles they anointed with their brethren flag Despite the barrage of the tide Survive.
Alise Versella is a Pushcart-nominated contributing writer for Rebelle Society whose work has also been published in Circle Show, COG Magazine,Entropy, Enclave, The Opiate, Penumbra Literary and Art Journal, Ultraviolet Tribe, What Rough Beast,Steam Ticket, and Elephant Journal, among others. Versella has worked with author Francesca Lia Block and Women’s Spiritual Poetry, whose latest anthology, Goddess: When She Rules, raised money for the Malala Fund. Kirkus has called her “…[A] boundlessly energetic and promising technician [who] crafts a unique blend of the symbolist and the confessional; a talented, promising newcomer.” She performs at local coffeehouses in Southern New Jersey and has taught poetry workshops at local libraries and schools.
Alise Versella’s poem, “God Give Me Favor” seems to strike an interesting chord between what we accept as reality and what we know is only in our minds. Her line “I do not go where I cannot float” can be interpreted in so many ways. “Float” can mean survival, existence, day-to-day living, really any number of things. In other words, Ms. Versella cannot or will not go where she cannot exist. This would truly make a good topic for a classroom discussion. Frank Kowal
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