I AM A NATURAL WONDER by Anne Cecelia Holmes & Lily Ladewig

I AM A NATURAL WONDER

Where there is wetsuit attraction
is where I go. When I am singing
to the showers there is no stopping it.
I swear once in your town I appeared
as if by wave. I powered your well.
I jarred every ounce I could touch.
Now I know about conversion,
about which of me is best.
All night I have been swamping
with these legs full of glint.

(forthcoming in Saltgrass, Issue #6)

~~~~~~~~~~

I AM A NATURAL WONDER

Explosion. Now pick the pieces up.
Somebody said I can’t give you anything
but love, baby, but now I give you the softness
of the air pillowing around its heat.
Wind is created by warm patches sucked up
by the cold. You were created to be careful.
You tried clipping the wires. You tried
not to detonate it.

(previously published in Softblow)

~~~~~~~~~~

I AM A NATURAL WONDER

Now I am just the phrase you think
in between thoughts. A gigantic
machine privately whirring.
When I am in a parking lot there is
an overflow feeling, my ribs
swarming so hard I barely echo.
Look at me wrangling here like this.
If you are thinking about time pockets
I am the one swelling in the corner.

(previously published in Jellyfish, Issue #2)

~~~~~~~~~~

STATEMENT
The poems from this series grew organically out of the title “I Am A Natural Wonder”. We started each poem without knowing where it would lead us and recurring themes quickly emerged: ecosystems, weather patterns, natural and supernatural phenomena, femininity, corporeality, and human connection.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anne Cecelia Holmes & Lily Ladewig met in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at UMass Amherst. Individually their poems have been published or are forthcoming in H_NGM_N, Juked, notnostrums, Supermachine, Sir!, and So and So, among other places. They are co-authors of the chapbook “I Am A Natural Wonder”, forthcoming from Blue Hour Press (November 2010). Poems from this series have or will appear in Artifice, Glitterpony, Jellyfish, Saltgrass, and Softblow. Currently Lily is living Brooklyn, NY, and Anne is subletting Lily’s bedroom in Northampton, MA.