Emily J. Mundy: 3 Poems

A Stash of Days

The nosedive into oblivion
sweeps through me like a white sea carnival
rips through a sleepy town:
          abruptly bursting color bombs, noise spilling out
          ​from floral sweats and flint mouth.

I lose myself in a stash of days
drug under, into the dark throat
of a hellbent wave; my shape
          crumples in on itself, a geode of limbs
          ​skidding into ringlets of obsidian.

                    My hands contort in flailing prayer,
                              ​a calligraphy of undrowned sins.

Nosediving, again
my organs surge in riptide—swimming,
swimming, baptized. I find my eyes in a mirror:
          two fluttering moths
          ​doused in kerosene.

The matchbox in my belly blinks, and I sing
hear me, holy mania—braid me
spasm first into my spine so that I may remember
          this craze of crawling
          ​through the maze back to my center.

                    ​I was born with one of those: a center,
                              ​however serpentine the way back in.

Just when the riptide rears its mad sneer
wide enough to tear me limb from limb,
just when the sky is eaten clear of light,
          I remember to relax.
          ​In one flexuous flash

the swell breaks and I am spit
          onto the split grin
                    ​of the unsuspecting shore

This Worthy Work

I go where the body pulls me, today.
Today, I listen and follow— 

the measured hush of my worn boots scuffing
warmed dirt, which little exhales punctuate

obsidian eye of a garter snake
penetrating the stark pause between our frozen frames

its river-like swivel into the effortless wisp
of the tall grass shimmying, shimmying

white berries conjuring my curious thumb,
taut flesh exposing itself between my fingers’ squeeze

my molasses shuffle toward the memory of leaves
a once-canopy transformed to a skeletal gateway.

The lone bluff calls my hidden name:
​

Palms press hard into the chilled soil,
ankles crossed and dangling over its edge.

I imagine my body sinking downward, the cliff and me
collapsing into the twisting swarm of branches below.

It is here when I realize that loneliness
is no longer haunting my heart.

To thank the parallel spirit,
I write their name into the sand.

This worthy work is worth
the restlessness and wounds

worth letting the words of the body
wash into merely—solitude.

The Blooming

(CW: domestic violence)

To the rusted blade
lobbed into the grey ache
of the sound—forgiveness

To the splay of former selves
spattered across the bone-walls
of inner ribs

For not having found the prayer
to free the imprint of ghosts
from the purgatory of forearm skin

For the folded pile of fraught spells
meant to manifest a brighter being
inside this flesh case of rough seams

For failing, but
trying, again and again— 
forgiveness

To all the tail ends of evenings
lost in a half-empty bottle drifting
into the abyss of memory

To the flash of ashtrays accidentally overflowing
To the grit and spit and sweat slipping
between two bodies that chose each other to forget— 

a pardon, compassion, respite

For every plight of gouging out
my father’s fists from the soft depths
in the grudge of my sternum

For not having learned
to stop trying to beat
the beatings out

To unravel from the surging fury
Because abandonment kept leaving
Because just believing in the light

would not beckon it over the lip
of the horizon—all that is left, now
is the night’s thin throat, waiting

to be wide-eyed waded into
is a punch bowl of ice water
that longs to hold your face

is a pair of soot-strewn lungs
designed to remind you
that sometimes it is enough

just to release
the perpetuated shape
of self-destruction—so get to it

Cast that damp shadow off like a wet shawl
and launch your movement, light,
across the warmly worn meadow

You didn’t spill all that salt for nothing
but swear—right here—you’ll let
your blood stay blue

Swear you’ll cup the cheek of your loneliest hue
that you’ll eat all your fallen petals
nascent bulbs bursting from a mouthful of soil

Bloom the boomerang of kindness
Bloom the furious aliveness
Bloom mercy

and bloom soft

Oblivion’s wilt is forgiven— 
the blade rests in the belly of the sound

Emily J. Mundy is a Seattle-based poet, whose work reveres the spiritual, healing nature of poetry. She is particularly intrigued by cycles in nature, and considers ritual and manifestation through language to be vital cruxes in her writing practice. She shares a small realm with her two cats and one beloved typewriter.