Stephanie Warner

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Spooky Action at a Distance

I count the cycles of the moon
since I saw you, in the Russian way,
on the knuckles of my fingers.
Declensions and alien sigils
charm the smoke of my nag champa.

Time no longer animates
the minor gods in the hands
of clocks; its Mercury spooks
between my fingers.

And so, you have left me, love
to fret about the under-stitching
of pressed petals beneath
The Unicorn in Captivity––

These nights of the sun and moon,
swallowing each other, in sexual ouroboros,
and vodka in thrift store tea cups,
bruised with poppies and brackish
roses – as my liver’s bellow
creaks its reliable leather. Hankers
wind into a fire
rather too well tended.

The vessels in my face
unspooling under my just
smooth skin, while the trembling aspen
ripple the withers of their one
unfathomable animal – everything kindred.
The Fibonacci sequence wringing
her horn like a cloth, while quantum entanglement
plays a game of ever diminishing
returns.

Did they also stitch, beneath,
the leavings of bird-fine bones –
the unicorn’s ribs like a tiny harp,
or abalone comb? The boozy, resinous
fallen pears. Did they sew the hollow
left by her long tenure in the pen?

How does one even begin that sentence?

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STEPHANIE WARNER published her first collection, A Violent Streak, in 2018. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals in Canada and abroad, and has been shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry prize. She currently resides in The Kootenays.