We are very thin.
We no longer use the doors.
Our eyes are round and we do not
speak often. When we speak
there is no sound of soil
or sun. We do not use our tongues
to taste to kiss to lick.
We are overwhelmed by teeth.
We do not pray.
There is no smoke inside
the bone house or any offering.
We long to pour wine to gather
our lips and whistle
to see our skin reflect the sky like water
to hear alien languages
and discover we already speak them.
We long to wake to ourselves.
In the bone house we have
withdrawn so far from ourselves
we have forgotten death.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 17, Issue 1.
Ariana Nadia Nash is the winner of the 2011 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry for her collection Instructions for Preparing Your Skin (Anhinga Press, 2013). She is also the author of the chapbook Our Blood Is Singing (Damask Press, 2012). She is a recipient of a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize and a MacDowell Colony residency. Her work has been published in Rock & Sling, Poet Lore, Cimarron Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Southeast Review, among other journals. More information and links to other poems by Ariana can be found on her website at www.ariananadianash.com.
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