Kelsey Castaneda: The Hums
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[poems from “the hums”]
i.
like a lily slowly unfolding so your petals fall into me
and sleep in the lining of my breath oh, this is a certain kind of death
isn’t the heart dreamlike isn’t the heart petal-full?
i ask the sun to recall memories from all of my lives
it seems that in none of them could anyone undo my eyes the way that you do
because i feel sun drunk when you look at me i feel
sun drunk when you look at me i feel sun
drunk when you look at me i feel sun drunk
when you look at me i feel like i have lost nothingafter all
ii.
are you the sphinx or are you the riddle ?
dig your fingers into your chest,
open up your heart, pull it apart look inside
you’ll see a tree its blue trunk coiled around your spine
how does it feel when a leaf falls & lands in your belly?
do you feel like you’ll die do you feel heavy do you unleave yourself too?
solitude is not being alone it’s having a grey voice it’s losing all the leaves
& sleeping inside a memory
iii.
i will die wearing a wolf mask rolling in dirt with no words left in my voice
i accept this because i know my bones will finally become black birds that sing
the song of my eyes, the song of the silent clawing of the wind
i wonder what do you feel under your skin is it sin ?
& my heart will flutter itself into the sky yes, that is where hearts go
when bodies die, to the sky, where they float in the wind
[poems from “the hums”]
i.
like a lily slowly unfolding so your petals fall into me
and sleep in the lining of my breath oh, this is a certain kind of death
isn’t the heart dreamlike isn’t the heart petal-full?
i ask the sun to recall memories from all of my lives
it seems that in none of them could anyone undo my eyes the way that you do
because i feel sun drunk when you look at me i feel
sun drunk when you look at me i feel sun
drunk when you look at me i feel sun drunk
when you look at me i feel like i have lost nothingafter all
ii.
are you the sphinx or are you the riddle ?
dig your fingers into your chest,
open up your heart, pull it apart look inside
you’ll see a tree its blue trunk coiled around your spine
how does it feel when a leaf falls & lands in your belly?
do you feel like you’ll die do you feel heavy do you unleave yourself too?
solitude is not being alone it’s having a grey voice it’s losing all the leaves
& sleeping inside a memory
iii.
i will die wearing a wolf mask rolling in dirt with no words left in my voice
i accept this because i know my bones will finally become black birds that sing
the song of my eyes, the song of the silent clawing of the wind
i wonder what do you feel under your skin is it sin ?
& my heart will flutter itself into the sky yes, that is where hearts go
when bodies die, to the sky, where they float in the wind
Kelsey Castaneda is a poet and holds an MFA from the University of Notre Dame. Her work is often concerned with gender, sexuality, and translation. She enjoys teaching, board games, translating Latin, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and being a cat mom to Willow and Cordelia. Her work can be found in glitterMOB and elsewhere.
