D a n i k a S t e g e m a n —

Levitation

Wounds open in heaven. Past = future

(ink smeared ominously joining the words

and the sign into oneness). I shift into fevermind.

House of coats. Nothing but sticks. The sweat on

my skin shines. You don gloves white as sin. I skirt

their perimeters. I know the limits of my fainting

heart. I place a sketch of it dissected in half

in your hands. The diagram reveals incisions

shaped like cloud edges and the letters

in your name. In the distance, two overlapping

windmills turn asynchronously. Blade then blade

then blade then blade. Off the vista, a vulture glides

thermals, sharpening its wingtips. Cut the deck.

Borrow a hat, and as you hold it in front of you,

walk forward. Attach a thread. The hat remains

in the air. Return. The blades begin to slip

into alignment. When faced with a portal,

I reflexively imagine being drawn through it,

rather than what might come out of it.

No mirroring is harmless. Press the mouth

of the hat against your body. The spectators

aren’t aware the double has a hole in its center.

Amanuensis

You’ve got a face like lightning. I trace the shadows of your eyelids to form tears beneath mine. Once an

opera singer looked inside me, water in the whites of her eyes, defiance in the irises. Black lace scalloped

her tender wrists. I touch you gloved. I mirror her imaginal across years, double her voice like stars in

space, incalculable. Chaos is order repeated exponentially. I seek the song but never find it.

I feel the lifeforce that inhabits your body. Her skin was cream spun to silk. I dream a demi-ghost.

Angels are invisible; only demons make themselves visible. A structural system mapped into being.

Corporations linked; the linear commodification of art as saleable objectfeeling. Do I want this liturgy

removed from my body? Is what I want unholiness?

Wires and clamps, a permanent wave method. Lux cords checkered and spiraling, joining to your

material heart. You ask where I am. What I’m doing. I’m in your dining room, listening to an aria from

a Faustian opera over and over, writing a failing epistle. I’m trying to decide if I want you to tie me up,

or if I want to tie you up. Marguerite is the eternal feminine. When Faust’s soul exits his body, it drags

him into hell. Aria, dining room.

I dream a new shape. Some lines read horizontally, others vertically, others diagonally. Words become

vision; you’re supposed to be a medium for mystical surrender. Amanuensis. I expect to feel a sensation

in my lips but don’t. I expect a bright hell but forget the brimstone and smoke clouding everything.

Astral dust. A saintly figure makes a bargain. The saint makes a bargain with the keeper of the infernal

world. Sometimes the saint is rescued, sometimes not.

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