by Ma|DE
In a wild country
invocations
become invitations.
Voices: trilling,
croaking
spilling into full,
ineffable bloom:
a precious jewel
crystallized
inside the head
against doom-tickled scum
lip-synced into
creek, meadow or pond.
They scavenged me once,
neck closed
eyes closed
this wand, these words
fly inside
another frog’s
inverted spleen
where words splay
and wards raise.
Apotropaic shroud against
the archaic plague
of locusts rising
vague as mushroom bells
of gloom-grey cloud:
crossing the pocky terrain
between
tempest & restraint,
the tocky earth turns
to incandescent plane.
When all of nature
feels incantatory I leap
I greet
to offer milk & meat,
bed down sweet in lamb’s wool.
We will be tongue-tied
by affinity,
running the rhythms
of our own cunning cadence.
MA|DE (est. 2018) is the collaborative writing partnership of artists Mark Laliberte and Jade Wallace. Their third chapbook, A Trip to the ZZOO (Collusion Books, 2020), was shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award, and was expanded into their debut full-length poetry collection, ZZOO, forthcoming from Palimpsest Press. More: ma-de.ca
Familiar can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 5.2.
