Sympathetic Resonance My voice can pull harmonics from piano strings, rattle dishes in my kitchen. Hardwood floors buzz beneath my feet. A high note held is not a peak, it's a view of one mountain while standing on another. A week before my cut date I float in warm water, mind-body tight. My handsome friend plays arpeggios on my left thigh. Bach feels like smooth algae in salt, Rachmaninoff presses on my sore spots. Chopin tickles skin the most. I tell him so. He likes the way my mouth looks when I laugh. The song shape of my lips.
Diagnosis Here comes the new info. Hornet swarms blow out the windows. Keep your cool. Cover your mouth with a hand & breathe through the bee-veil. Lay out that plate of figs & cake & damn the flies. Damn each rotten seed. Pinch wasps at their waists & dodge the stings. Go out to the brood boxes. Brush them with dung. Ready your honey claws for the pollen war.
Lynne Ellis writes in pen. Her words have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, the Missouri Review, Poets Reading the News, WA 129, PageBoy, among others. She was awared the 2021 Perkoff Prize and the 2018 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize. She is currently working on a collection of pandemic-themed broadsides, in collaboration with Felicia Rice (Moving Parts Press). Her book, In these failing times I can forget, was published by Papeachu Press in 2020.
“Diagnosis” was originally published as part of the June 30/30 Project at Tupelo Press.