These poems are based on my engagement with The Thunder, Perfect Mind: a poem written by an unknown woman from Egypt in the fourth century. Pagan and Christian ideas were merging and transforming in the divinities of the goddess Isis and Virgin Mary at this time. The epigraphs are taken from the Egyptian poem, and the titled poems following are my imaginings. The translation is by Anne McGuire, used with her permission.
Sunback Sunforth
Why, you who hate me, do you love me?
Eye can’t lull commerce crashing
with universe monument to greed today
quickened takes a wrecking ball
to justice reversing reversed statues
in American parks Eye could string lights
from the ancients’ fires to a local bar
lofty with reindeer my eyes turned in
to cessations of the herd inside my breast
eagle shadows conceal all the breath caught
in a pyramid then on a saint icon’s upper lip
a CHAT bot’s envy of Isis and song
bring me to the brink of skin
Eye donate blood by sword for someone
else their sun-star-crossed
4EVER ❤ chiseled leapt
ancient panther and prey tattoo
needle follows crush along vein
stalking millennia lotus ankh
suffusing dawn no words exchanged
one promise forking always two names
twig dividing twig axillary violence
battle for air and light Montague and Capulet
marshfire blot with all the stars morning-white
burned last night circus down to clown
in Gemini what alliance what murderous
break Cleopatra and Ptolemy
Eye lip synch reasons to exist belt out
unity through holes in the augury
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves
And do not pursue me from your vision.
For Eye Am Thistle at the End
of a blowpipe
fireone drop radiatingmultiplying some blemish
ozone and pheromone hotwire my honey shoesthe cloud clings
to sun of helianthusmy prickling a present tense
gods invoice the future Eye have already lived
the lolling will stopthe knocking will knock
Eye am the Dark Ages flexing petalsall the doom facts
Eye am root crypt-creptundercrawl in a subway tunnel
visions on platforms of bloomyou may seek me
Eye am iron doors clanking
Eyecommunity of one
ask to join your feral and your feud
but Eye am not to be watchedfor Eye am
night vision’s scribe and her cursive missive to not here—
spray paint loverejoinderriver
O accurate mouthpen and panned goldthe tea party girls
were paler thenEye am their samovar eyes
flesh throb into graffiti breaks the sound barrierso we can see
not ignore the swollen chorus of Eye Am
But whenever you hide yourselves / I myself will be manifest. / For whenever you are manifest, I myself will hide from you.
Allwhither
Eye am known to vanish
at a nation’s pinked border
with you another country’s
zizag land rag sheared
cheek-lined purse left behind
it is less known—a great oak
knocked at my root so Eye hide
in the least of trees coaxing
sequel leaves from my gilt-
cringed laureate crown
to nest all the airplanes
a hangar of birds
trying to reach you
strung to theory
curled up so small
as to be invisible
blurred with careful centuries
Eye span canyons sequined
budbreak sound of tiny
tambourines mirroring
constellation-baubled
figments cold with Hera’s envy
warm She bear and her son
valley fog breathes between mountains
bright bridge of smoke
from Eye-cross-to-you and never
But as for me, I am merciful and I am cruel
Be on guard!
Do not hate my obedience,
and do not love my self-control in my weakness.
Do not forsake me,
and do not be afraid of my power.
Show Me Stop Me
allow me
to forget
but Eye still scream
with the flowers screaming
let ivy creep and circle me
little hairs of attachment
green words of cleave
climb the air you are left behind in
wither to crispgrasshoppers
widowed in a drought
did you think Eye could turn to you in some legible storm—
flowering contusions—and have something to say
ground mud so fecund Eden re-forests
with open arms Eye gather you from the produce aisle
from the blue Danube of your screen
waltz through witch hazel in a window pane
find the document that is a meadow you can live in
Interlucence
On the day I am close to you, you are far away from me
and on the day when I am far away from you, I am close to you.
a cymbal shudderingthe company of bronze cowbirds—brushedshushing
long after resting horns at evening
Eye step loud in overhead cloudon god eggshells
Eye go only low below a tree mycorrhizal gossip
goddess-nervedEye am a notion of povertylace and rag
fashion a winding sheetlight between debt
fled windows thread an after
Jenny Grassl lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her poems have appeared in Ocean State Review, The Boston Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Bennington Review, Poetry International, Lana Turner Journal, Laurel Review, and others. She was a runner-up for The Boston Review Annual Prize, selected by Mary Jo Bang, and a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Magicholia, her first book, was published in 2024 by 3: A Taos Press. Her second book, Forever Mistaken for Ourselves won publication by Tupelo Press in their July Open Reading period, and is forthcoming in 2026.
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