by Anna Šverclová ’23
Here at The Words, we want to showcase the exciting talents of our senior Creative Writing majors through a little something we like to call “WordPlay.” This month, we asked Asa Benjamin to share one of their poems.
Asa Benjamin is a senior English (Creative Writing) major and Performance Design and Technologies minor. They have a soft spot for formed poetry (especially sestinas) and fantasy.
Thanks for sharing, Asa!
The Ship Speaks of Her Final Moments
The crash licked her way up me blood-hot.
metal-epiderm my lungs spit backwards
pushed you all out into the unknown
like a mother i birthed you forward
through space, umbilical tether gravity
They said I would collide, break all my bones to kiss that land. I asked “Do you promise me?’
they built me in a harbor-bay, a creaking
knowing before the unknown, metal womb
shaping a silver knife a silver body
but that was before i knew any of you
like so many rivets, dropped skittering
in my aorta through all my arteries you
call your ship a woman so i became your
woman. you touched me tool and virtue.
You set me to explore, you know. You always urged me answers.
pilgrimage and pleasure court and funeral
catalog and query nip and suck
nurture and witness anodized and bled
succour and executioner killing and alive
cling your daughter’s braids, your hands leavened
your trials in my belly, consummate your treaties
i clawed for news of your away missions and
if the laundry ever got finished.
You cried into my liver as if I had any power to stop this. As if I would.
something you haven’t understood. you spoke me
alive. i am your convoy-versus-mother-spouseandchild
i am your zenith and your prime. i am component
and the whole. promise me life? then let me live blazing.
While you cried I wondered how it would feel to kiss the ground.
hit me then, pretty and sailing, up the wind
dash me to sand in your embrace and make it
good. make it good. make it