scent of amber, tobacco, atlas cedar,
rosewood, clove: the smoke
curls into thinking, the thought takes

 

your form by the river curling
in a narrow ravine: the river, your sun-drunk
body, my thinking: serpentine: cinching the waist

 

of the world: invocation: the softest bell: echo
under my tongue: for a moment the water is still
but i can’t stand it: i can’t stand in it, it’s too deep,

 

must my feelings always be so obvious? i suppose
i could accept that longing has made a home of me

did it make a home inside
your chest? what is the softest thing
you’ve ever held hostage? at what
age did you first hide your truest
feeling? what feeling then
eclipsed the truer one?
who did you blame?

---

Patrycja Humienik is a Polish-American writer and movement artist based in Seattle, WA. Her poetry is featured/forthcoming in Passages North, Hobart, The Shallow Ends, Four Way Review, The Boiler, Yemassee, and Third Point Press, among others. Find her on twitter @jej_sen.