Fugue III: Weltschmerz
in the middle of a sorrow snowstorm even the tossed timber dice looks pearl sugar white
i am dante, spring’s a limbo
with every refrigeration, mementos of looming, stalling hope with every warmth, an impish groundhog taunts
an overstay no tendernesses in sight
winter still has her throttling fingers around her successor’s poor throat
i am bits and pieces i am love, culled in a bottle
an ice bath
memory, a cold finger touch you can’t warm out of your body rumination, a river babble, damless
the whole of bleary noon, space heaters, weighted blankets, december ice creams the thought cannibalized into a wiry core of truth shadows playing hopscotch on lashes
there’s a door pushing up against my mind and if i let it it says poetry or it says its neighbor-sister death, dying, driving oneself car-mad collecting lashes of indifference cyanotype impressions of gloom i let out a half-stilted laugh and the lie i’ll let you know when i’m too cold the world in my hands
and yet: always toeing, always teasing the free rein line
Fugue II: Roundabout Is Fine you wanted a quiet house/when it stilled mad you went/landlocked grief/graveyard tan guts there was no epiphany/nadir thoughts fractal wrongness/but this strange suffering did not make you yield/the house stayed quiet diabolical solo sudokus in stead of tossing out land anchors/no: seaboat daydreams/roundabout is fine
Aïcha Martine Thiam is a trilingual/multicultural writer, musician and artist; she has been nominated for Best of the Net, The Best Small Fictions and The Pushcart Prize. Aïcha’s the author of AT SEA (CLASH BOOKS), and BURN THE WITCH (Finishing Line Press). Follow her work at amartine.com. Her Instagram handle is @maelllstrom.
Thin Air 