Engraft

By Michele Seminara

“Engraft is a masterwork. Seminara's deep gift lies in her fusion of the viscera of life with a transcendent poetic vision. By turns terrifying and tender, loving and lost, Seminara is a major new voice in contemporary poetry.”
– Charles Bane, Jr.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781326695972

Book preview

Note

Hoary

Fifteen thousand years I have slumbered

In my icy casket, a hoary

Princess waiting

Not to be kissed, but punctured

By the pick of a prying scientist.

My blood, dark as a fairy tale

Leached insidiously into the Siberian snow

And my flesh flared red and fresh

Enough to eat.

My lower limbs devoured

By a potent pack of ancient wolves

My torso still fantastically intact.

What a prize: my anti-cryogenic

Strength has preserved the code

To conjure my kind back.

Exhumed from earth’s wet memory

(Who dares re-awaken me?)

Entombed in glass and sold for obscene show —

What they may unleash they do not know.

All Dried Up

I

an old lady

waiting in this parched bed

for something to happen

which cannot happen

I

an old lady

with an impatient

unsated belly

that will not rain

I

an old lady

whose slow mind spreads

so far her eye has

lost sight

I

the one

who age must not tame —

May my drying up cause this spark to flame!

Self Seen

Impassive as a mountain

I sit, hands resting reverentially in

the infertile valley of my lap,

face glowing like the gibbous