Rapid Eye and Other Poems

By Megan Mizanty

Rapid Eye

Originally published by Page and Spine

The Undersweet
         takes sips of grace.
 The belly keeps warm,
          huddled in between
 Those longer Jonah days.

 Sometimes, when you’re five
         years old at 3 a.m.,
 A hammerhead swims shadows
           across your bedroom wall.
 You jerk, reach for drops on fingertips.

 At night, in phases of moons and honey,
             the undertow brings a blessed
 Kind of sleep, a cooled waxing hum
            of liquid sheets, sighs.

 This is the place where,
         If you stand still enough,
If you precipice yourself more,
          You have no idea,
 You have every idea.

On the News of Someone

I’m happy for you.
 In another ecosystem - coursed through and lily blossomed -
 Something may have brushed between
 But I’m not sure:
 Stained rings from coffee mugs have a way of overlapping,
 the layers of silt, the dregs from ended sips
 I think, for moments, there was more than camaraderie
 There was an ‘oh my,’ here it is
 But, as people do,
 We double down in our root systems,
 Holding firm to what has grown so far,
 Reaching down with sooted fingertips,
 The tending never stops, even with
 Seeds strewn all around, new greened and fresh
 The earth opening wide and split, cleaved, gaping,
 I’m happy for you.

Flowering and Are You?

After moving, muscles dropped soft
 I have to remember this helps.
 Of course, again and again,
 We know and forget this is medicine.

 Still, sedentary is seductive. Sit and binge.
 Eyes crammed with potato chips and pillows
 I can lie here all day, a winded-ice season gone by
 Lick salted fingertips
 (yes, still watching)
 But my quiet is different,

 When I get to a place, on the mat,
 As the swallows fly past and I feel their winged currents
 Sense their direction, breathe with the leaves
 I’m more rested than any must-see.

 This is the the forked decision:
 How can we give our cells a place
 To slip away and into this perfect thisness