Radial Scent by Sharon Wang
My body tauter, poised to carry.
When I pitch forward
I tumble inside.
Each time I try,
an algal bloom
replaces language’s surface.
Ruby-red & unmoored,
waves over laminate surfaces…
Everything alive aching
for more aliveness.
I love the world,
push it away reflexively.
Make songs like
negated charges on a circuit.
Syntax arches towards
the back of
a neck. Inside emotion:
a corralling of emotion.
Love in the larval stage:
terror of surrender.
Unraveling, a path.
Words were not made for us.
They are above, we submit.
We are like the rock beneath
the water,
even if we created the water.
l noelle mclaughlin 