Callista Buchen
Figure
Woman, you are the not the first.
You mistake sand for water, you blame your confusion on the sun. Split looks like
multiply, many could almost mean more. You think you read the reflections, the near
misses, as if you understand what you see. What births, divides. Imagine: cuttings of
saffron, cuttings of holly, strawberry, sequoia, plants hundreds of yards (or is it years)
apart. Your impossible body, your impossible claim.
Callista Buchen is the author of the chapbooks The Bloody Planet (Black Lawrence Press, October 2015) and Double-Mouthed (winter 2016, dancing girl press). Her work appears in Harpur Palate, Puerto del Sol, Fourteen Hills, Thrush, and many other journals, and she is the winner of the Langston Hughes Award and DIAGRAM's essay contest.
Return to September 2016 Edition
Woman, you are the not the first.
You mistake sand for water, you blame your confusion on the sun. Split looks like
multiply, many could almost mean more. You think you read the reflections, the near
misses, as if you understand what you see. What births, divides. Imagine: cuttings of
saffron, cuttings of holly, strawberry, sequoia, plants hundreds of yards (or is it years)
apart. Your impossible body, your impossible claim.
Callista Buchen is the author of the chapbooks The Bloody Planet (Black Lawrence Press, October 2015) and Double-Mouthed (winter 2016, dancing girl press). Her work appears in Harpur Palate, Puerto del Sol, Fourteen Hills, Thrush, and many other journals, and she is the winner of the Langston Hughes Award and DIAGRAM's essay contest.
Return to September 2016 Edition