amercurial

may it remain unchartered, chatter of latesinging
mockingbirds, it is daybreak no matter when
awakened. how else to halt the haunting but to
avoid the night? all but half the haul, hoarse
w/ remembering. amercurial inevitabilities bend
what was anticipated, flout an already broken
relativity. you speak tenderly amidst the swelling
of air, spoke of leap years somberly, I dare not
repeat the spell.

exponential, the volume of rose bush where you
live, blushed forth in bloom second & third &
fourth time round. useless in your eagerness to
learn all things in part, to part as you please.
burning all over, bruised fruit, baby what a time
we’re in. worn thin by the very ambition, darting
through thorn throne, twig metropolis. you take it
all for granted. returning nest empty, still mocking
its very nature.

This poem is from Pangyrus’s poetry collection, What Tells You Ripeness: Black Poets on Nature, Edited by Nikki Wallschlaeger (available in our store).

Image: “Sunrise over Rock Creek Park, Derwood, Maryland” by Riley Damon, licensed under CC 2.0.

Author photo by Liz Johnson Artur.

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S*an Henry-Smith

S*an D. Henry-Smith is an artist and writer working primarily in poetry, photography, and performance, engaging Black experimentalisms and collaboration. They are the author of two chapbooks, Body Text and Flotsam Suite: A Strange & Precarious Life, or How We Chronicled the Little Disasters & I Won’t Leave the Dance Floor Til It’s Out of My System; as mouthfeel, they coauthored Consider the Tongue alongside Imani Elizabeth Jackson, which explores histories of aquatic labor and Black food through cooking, poetry, and ephemeral practices. Wild Peach is their first full-length collection.

Latest posts by S*an Henry-Smith (see all)

• amercurial - October 15, 2021