On some sort of edge
by Izze M-K

in the bathouse at midnight

alone becoming black oil
shadowed against    the
(dark blue)
the sun was tempered in a
net downtown
(dark blue)

somehow again
it is morning and
the newly vapored sun
has slipped through

i rise and flap my wings
panting, i plant my toes
sneak out the back door

to where i replace the
snow carefully
i stand and sink my
ankles into the cold

numbing the
earth   warm and wet
under the crux i am

starved and trembling
i crouch low
lightly, lapping

spirals round my
thighs i dig and
dig and dig

shrouding my body
in evidence of
(i want to be holy)
i weep and ask each

fistful of mud to
inherit these hands
i pray from my igloo in

every soulful swallowing
from here, i am hidden
so i compost my tongue
and grow this body back from blue

~

Izze is a lover, poet, and painter. They are studying conservation biology and are a licensed emergency veterinary technician. Izze has been writing poetry since they were a child, always entering poetry as a respite and confessional in one. This place has evolved in time with her, maturing and expanding, contracting and whirling all the same. A place to explore language and ideas, to ridicule and imitate, to become and create. Poetry has always been an impulse rather than a premeditated act. For more from Izze, subscribe to their substack: https://wwavveyy.substack.com/.

Image credit: Merlin Kraus, Unsplash

Author’s note: I have written too many poems about my process of finding light from a dark place. I no longer feel burdened by the dark or blank. Instead, I am grateful for every moment awake. This piece is a response to what I felt I must do when I read the cfp for this issue: cover my body in snowy mud and lay as flat and still as I can, wiping the muck from my eyes and letting them be washed by the sun.