Tanya Rakh: This Is Infinity Breathing
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
tap
(EXCERPT FROM HYDROGEN SOFI )
a spine to its forget-me-not fluid:
I want your every hurricane
I leave you piles of limestone
walk home in sheets of fog
I swallow all your waters
we intertwine silk and silver
in my thin-skin night twitches
we are the warm candy blood
this is infinity breathing
***
fate, princess, says the knight as he holds out his hand. princess takes that hand and eats all his jeweled enchantments, sings dew songs as she crunches. wraps her precious sunrise a blanket around his castle, dives from towers now and then, catches squirrels in the night trees
everything here smells like apple core
I’m dizzy and the sidewalks are wet paint and
I swallow my own lungs again
trying out the backstroke
warm, princess, warm days are fading fast don't deny it your lips are gonna split so deep this time. the clean razor shine of winter on our smooth necks, we walk through cold aquamarine cities, a cloaking dream. all dimensions in our footsteps, each snowflake an open galaxy
***
until the dead rains cloud over
and our mouths fill with crystal
let’s rupture these pitch caves
bloody and seamless
the shine, angel,
your feathered hands
tundra
(EXCERPT FROM HYDROGEN SOFI )
my sweet bone socket
(my live firefly)
my salt,
I am a battery
(sweetest, ugliest yes)
I sweat in stitch and hemline
(your hemline jaw)
our lanterns all glow here,
fry up the dead girls
***
animals in our eyes
highways to
black horizon
(stone)
white forest
(moss)
a big river
always a big river and the serpent trees
don’t know how many crumble here, exactly
(exactly, Arachne)
gods require tender care,
the hands and impediments and
something else
the violet blood of something else
the stream,
river gutting through your
orange eyes
***
(all froth and steam, you lie in pieces on the riverbed,
newspapers swirl our winter streets)
every ice pleased with its perfect execution
every light watching (candle witness)
every crack in our metallic sidewalks
that vapor . . .
I spin you to your wind knees,
smooth arms
arms at least, moon,
whatever you call your lovers
light has never cared
dark only cares because it’s restless
you pierce through multitudes in a wash
***
crack me open underneath this winter
this thick, inescapable frost
chills bend my knuckles,
pulse my toes,
you always call me that thing
that stings most
incantations again
black gold and impossible
(a glowing record)
frost tangles
***
(never stop introducing
your live ghosts to your dead ones
they love each other and need to sleep)
never tell me your ghosts are sorry
they’re not sorry
they love every fall
Tanya Rakh was born on the outskirts of time and space in a cardboard box. After extensive planet-hopping, she currently makes her home in Wisconsin where she writes poetry, surrealist prose, and cross-genre amalgamations and works as a professional manuscript editor. Her writing often explores the interplay between the lyric and the visceral in imagery, form, and rhythm. Her poetry has appeared in the journals Bywords and Occasional Brilliance and is guest featured in the collection Used Wings by Tissy Taylor. Tanya has just finished her first book, Hydrogen Sofi, which she hopes to publish this year.
