Three Poems
Elizabeth Robinson
On Dirt
A body unto itself, rancid golem.
The body releases a tuft of hair.
Fur.
Dirt was amplified or exorcised in heat.
The body lets go
of the injury of birth, wiped
off. A rumor, a
stink.
Dirt and its hex.
There’s only so much the body can carry.
This little sing-song made oily with
perfume emitted by removal.
On Quim
Flooding the place the
the body wanted to believe
was
human shore
came all the way to the sea water
The body
where solid and liquid
invert their
hollow
asea
ashore No body
knows itself from
outside itself is no
body Tide’s fragrance All
sense curling inhuman
whose wet overflowed
the wave’s comparison
On Blue
The afterlife is blue, this change
of thirst. A figure
approaches a
greater, bluer movement,
yet
heaven is not
the afterlife. Pouring
heaven into
the vessel, a current, absorbed until
the figure begins to bathe here,
unstill, in
the color—
who
drank as it
washed her body. Who reached in
her hand
to soothe the onrush.
Elizabeth Robinson has published several books of poetry, most recently Three Novels (Omnidawn), Counterpart (Ahsahta), and Blue Heron (Center for Literary Publishing). Her recent mixed genre book, On Ghosts (Solid Objects), was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times book award.
