i.

lend me the strength of your strength
allow it to come like tide to me and
my mouth who is placed in your hands
again and over again the stretched curse
of dark mantle rises and hole opens
and the violence of creasing and bending
begins again and muddies up the feeling

lend me the house of your strength
allow it to build and to heave
to hurl the many small lives
into each other and over
to pull and to touch
to flatten and to soothe

lend me the jaw of your strength
the sure jaw that snags on breath
to chew a space of healing in a rock
to let the creasing and bending stay
in the steady hand you have
given me to hem a current through
the lively dust and the needle you
have given me to pull the lent root out
from it and again and over

lend me the quick of your strength
and with it i will sew
and with it i will mend

ii.

with this strength
you shall carry the water to the plain
and touch the plain with soft finger

with this strength
the water shall flow through the plain
and leave water and space behind

with this strength
the space behind shall bite the grass
and with teeth bared will suffer like all others

with this strength
all others shall gather the seeds in reach
and rest

with this strength
the seeds shall yelp and press into one another
and spite the clouds, such ignorant clouds

with this strength
the clouds shall as always settle and flow
and supplicate and crash

with this strength
you shall make a kind of peace with this
in due course
a home, a hollow
in due course

jasper avery lives and works in Philadelphia, where she is pursuing an MFA at Temple University. Her manuscript number one earth won the 2017 Metatron Prize (available in 2018). She is the author of two chapbooks: ghost medicine (Gloworm Press) and it gets cold (Trident). She is on Twitter (@saguarohugger) and Instagram (@jjasperavery). She would like to abolish all borders now!

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