dancing in the dark
by nicole v basta
curled in the crook of our legacy is an animal
that doesn’t know my intentions but is it an animal
or is it an instinct? the moon’s snubbed out
like a cigarette and on the blue of the edge, a trick
-ster waits to be witnessed or so the tales been told
i will believe if you speak of whose breath feathers
no fog, of the other language traded in the gospel
of the dark— time truths and what else but to obey it
what else when we can only account for the gray shade
blood paints our own eyelids, we who are not ever ash
-amed to yank ancient hair from the drain with our home
-sick hands and so when what claims alive in me shakes
the water from her body, the trickster lilts, swaggers, smokes
on the porch until the hour of secrets, until the phone rings
and he is called away and i can lie down again, fall asleep
beneath the silence i know only half as well as the mothers
of voices cupping their hands around my ears hurry
that doesn’t know my intentions but is it an animal
or is it an instinct? the moon’s snubbed out
like a cigarette and on the blue of the edge, a trick
-ster waits to be witnessed or so the tales been told
i will believe if you speak of whose breath feathers
no fog, of the other language traded in the gospel
of the dark— time truths and what else but to obey it
what else when we can only account for the gray shade
blood paints our own eyelids, we who are not ever ash
-amed to yank ancient hair from the drain with our home
-sick hands and so when what claims alive in me shakes
the water from her body, the trickster lilts, swaggers, smokes
on the porch until the hour of secrets, until the phone rings
and he is called away and i can lie down again, fall asleep
beneath the silence i know only half as well as the mothers
of voices cupping their hands around my ears hurry
nicole v basta's recent poems have found homes in Ploughshares, Plume, RHINO, North American Review, The Cortland Review, Third Coast, Best New Poets 2023 etc. Her second chapbook the next field over was published by Tolsun Books in 2022. nicole is also a visual artist, community educator, and arts events producer with proud roots in the Pennsylvania coal mines & garment factories. Her work has been supported by grants and residencies from places like Art Farm Nebraska, The Saltonstall Foundation, NYSCA, etc. www.nicolevbasta.com