I Am a Natural Wonder

I Am A NAturAl WoNderLiLy Ladewig and anne CeCeLia HoLmes

bLue Hour press 2010

many thanks to editors of Artifice Magazine, GlitterPony, Jellyfish Magazine, Poets for Living Waters, Saltgrass Journal, and Softblow for publishing versions of these poems.

Blue Hour Press • 1526 KentucKy st • lawrence Ks 66044www.bluehourpress.com • [email protected]© 2011 anne Holmes and Lily Ladewig. all rights reserved.

Banish Air from Air — Divide Light if you dare —

Emily Dickinson

I Am A NAturAl WoNder

When spring comes it is me at the front lines. It is me vibrating all over your back yard. Some say you can feel me coming months ahead of schedule, but surprise: I’ve been here all along. You can tell by the way your plants are creaking,by my small gold body bursting into light.


Watch me be so atomic with these handfuls.I’ll put some history into it. I’ll offer you the tip of it.When I say this is all polarI mean I squashed the real live giants.That you’ll think to grieve when weare now in space. That there is no way to stop this half flood. This flowering old man in a fountain. I’ll split it all right into tenths, then leave.


I am all about the costume changes.From the waist downa sandstorm. Back musclesare made to be moved.The ripples to look like creasesin blue cloth. EverydayI wear my ex-lover’s boxers.I see what you are doing here.You are wrapping me in packing tape.The containment is discrete.I inhabit the apartment. I inhabit all the apartments.


There is an occasion in which I rearrange. There is a saying that stuffing fur into everything has its penance. I’m doing a bronze pour over all my best featuresand you can’t tell me the places to be subtle. At the neck is whereI make the shortcut. In binoculars I’m always waving from the tiny end.


And on a similar note Iam up to the attic in strides.I am putting on these belts allloose. I am suspectingto open space is a trick.I promise in the morningI will appear as if from a thicket.I will say how the houseis elevated. How I can thinksplit-level like I’m trained for it.So many closets I amup to my neck in.


You are seeing me like a new being.My arms protracting to anglesof cloud matter. This requires talent.An aviator on solid ground still floatsand, moving with purpose, I too deactivate.All laws of geometry apply. I’m looking upall wrong. Such mistaken eye-contact: the edible flambé of morning. Haterswatch your backs. That scalding feelingon the roof of your mouth was no illusion.There are things you cannot learn from books.


I turn the seasons backwardsand after only a few yearsnobody can tell the difference.Instead of boring youwith the new leaf patternsI’ll just say “reverse snowfall”and you can infer the rest.Now weather bores me.I spend my days practicinga new way to sign my name.I use cities.


With my brain I find youin the soundest chair.This is a strange configuration.This is not the type of thingI am after. I see you fullyslouched and for once I am glad to be here.I have all these dimensionsto keep up and in the meantime nowhereto prop you. There’s this warblingin my head. I am full of giant charm but god please get this montage out.


This time I am most comfortable with the planets as they are. I have lingered above it alland I am ready to teach something big.First I will ask, where are you now?Have you seen the way I am rotating here?In my mouth are reminders of the places I’ve let go. It’s hard to tell you this without a face to consider. It’s hard to tell but I can bare my teeth on every playground in the universe.


Coming at you like a slewof movie trailers. Attractions.Lately my biggestaccomplishment is looking sohuman. I do what most girls do—stop shaving just above the knee—but my eyes see the multitudeof your faces. On TuesdaysI like to peel my skin backa little and sometimesthere’s ink underneath.


Explosion. Now pick the pieces up.Somebody said I can’t give you anythingbut love, baby, but now I give you the softnessof the air pillowing around its heat.Wind is created by warm patches sucked upby the cold. You were created to be careful.You tried clipping the wires. You triednot to detonate it.


Time is for crying about.I am for the slightest pyramidbuilt out of neighbors, the face I have drawn that is now in fashion. Imagine me a nose that doesn’t exist.Pitch me a question that has alwaysbeen certain. I know all the meansto flip a switch and never come out altered. The way I am blinkingsays enough.


Because I am so beautiful I see the worlddifferently. Trees are brighter. I can cross riverswithout getting wet. I am so far from blind.I see every color. On good days I see people’s heartsbeating under their shirts. The quality of lightis always fluorescent but never vibrating.My good looks don’t affect my taste buds.I taste ham sandwiches the same way that you do.


Where there is wetsuit attractionis where I go. When I am singingto the showers there is no stopping it.I swear once in your town I appearedas if by wave. I powered your well.I jarred every ounce I could touch.Now I know about conversion,about which of me is best.All night I have been swampingwith these legs full of glint.


and it’s baby time. In the Midwestthe mothers are young. Their blondedaughters are there to match.They know something about football.Fathers forget their motorcycle helmetson the kitchen counter. I pour outof the faucets tasting metallic. We screamour baby screams. They call this “prairie-style”, not an ounce of cellulite on it.


This bathtub isn’t a place to make homebut you can sure cradle me in it.You can scrub my shoulders for hours.On holy holidays, all the piggyback ridesyou can take. Do you understandhow habitable I am? Do you knowhow to build a room? Watch me.I fold hospital corners into everything.


Embodiment is a luxury but it will keepyou up at night. Pouring myself into bluejeans to fit in. Expanding my armslike a scarecrow. I would rather turnthis waterfall into a burlesque show.I would rather be doing anythingother than flapping these wings at you.Go ahead. Try to point this arrowat my heart before I disappear on youand you can smell me everywhere.


This year I’m available in extraordinary varieties.Sometimes my hands are plastered to my hips,other days my hair is the fiercest crimson. Andjust in time for the holidays. Advertisers had a field day.I was given away as many gifts. Soonthey were imbedding magnets in my skinto keep me upright. I started movingwith the seasons. Then I was moving on my own.


Therefore I fear nothing.Do not write poems aboutnightlights. Sit in turretsplaying sticky cat’s cradlewith spider webs.Staircases pulling at ghostslike magnets. When I wraparound the comet it becomesthe Great Comet and retains itselfon my skin. Behold,the glimmer burnt intoall points of contact, dying-out the way of the Shaker.


Kissing cousins never had it so good.Bats caught in the force fieldof my invisible hair. I had night visionfrom too much bat blood in my eyes.Point me in the direction of your existenceand I’ll power the all-night generators.A sustained flirtation never hurt so bad. SoI say I like you like I mean it andthis creates the friction you require.All the weather gone out the window.


Now I am just the phrase you thinkin between thoughts. A giganticmachine privately whirring.When I am in a parking lot there isan overflow feeling, my ribsswarming so hard I barely echo.Look at me wrangling here like this.If you are thinking about time pocketsI am the one swelling in the corner.


I wear my birthright just so. Here are my bestsellersI’ve stacked them high. Here’s the situation:there are crossword puzzles in your pockets,there isn’t a ring on any finger, and New Englandall around us. I literally stole a page from your notebookto sleep with your handwriting, the sloping. The hemof the mountains a real purple like the meat inside my stomach.We’re still our own two bodies, living things living at night.


In the end there will be taxi drivers.I can’t tell you the face I’ll havewhen emulating the parade but it will be like the first days.I most resembled a pedestrian.I have a picture of it readyso you know I’m the purebred. I am dredging for my head again.Of a million backseatsI’m the one filled up to here with swimming motions.

This book was designed by Justin Runge for Blue Hour Press, printed digitally, and distributed online. The bold font of News Gothic, designed by Morris Fuller Benton, is used for the titles, and the text is set in Adobe Garamond, a variant of Claude Garamond’s renowned typeface.

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I Am a Natural Wonder