by Shira Dentz
points of light in the sky
doubled, but this was a mirage
the way one can become one plus a shadow.
how, when someone one barely knows
leaves their body,
does their sweetness
like arils
fill one’s ribs,
the way the taste of anise
takes one by surprise
in the star’s central cavity,
its roomy chamber of the heart.
so much vacancy, echoless calm,
& chalky clatter of nut.
one expects woodiness to be tasteless;
yet one can whistle into hollow bones,
this fruit that comes & goes, invited.
Shira Dentz is the author of five books including SISYPHUSINA (PANK Books); winner of the Eugene Paul Nassar Prize 2021), and two chapbooks including FLOUNDERS (Essay Press). Her writing appears in many venues including Poetry, American Poetry Review, Cincinnati Review, Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, jubilat, Pleiades, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, Idaho Review, Diagram, New American Writing, Brooklyn Rail, Lana Turner, Apartment, Poets.org, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Poetrysociety.org, and NPR, and she’s a recipient of awards including an Academy of American Poets Prize and Poetry Society of America’s Lyric Poem and Cecil Hemley Awards. More about her writing can be found at shiradentz.com
Emerge Literary Journal 