from a Rose, a Nettle

IV.

The hypnotic orison, a prayer, a golden robe, my ballast. A veil, a pomegranate. The seen and unseen, a partition placed between then broken by incantation. She recasts the dictation: a golden robe, a ballast. The pomegranate floats above her head. The tombs of saints open wide.

Two crows mark the entrance, we go softly. Beams of light filter, smolder off the cool ground. An omen. The sliver of an aging moon hung low in the sky. The archetype guardian of our sacred realm ushers us through the thin veil, a hypnagogic visitation.

In the background, the beasts’ pace in the night, prancing animals. A dance of compromise between gesture and stillness. An apple floats above her head. An omen, a carbon black crow loitering on her bannister.

 
 
Emma Gomis is a Catalan American poet, essayist, editor and researcher. She is the cofounder of Manifold Criticism. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Poetics from Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, where she was also a fellowship recipient, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in criticism and culture at the University of Cambridge.