Sundial

Now

In the gossamer year,
to which we return nightly,
the lakes of time soothe their own combative hues.
Look how the past settles down, and the present smoothes out.
And look to the far side of Future,
still tended by that Ice Gardener, the dark angel
of separation, with those fingers that scratch.
You nod and we gather each other to disappear.

In the Beginning

When the moon was void, and you weren’t here,
I walked into the thick water of Future, the Viscous Dark.
I did not pass through the liquid,
it passed through me, behaving
as the Hollow Law of Solidity commands.
Is this saltwater or iodine?
I was blind and deaf until I wasn’t.
You weren’t there until you were.
It is the blood of time travelers.

Now

We talk in reverse —
what a wicked sundial! — and I trace
your skin through Time’s muslin skirt,
and I pretend I can feel you all the time.
This is only foreign to the foreigners
and the visitors, which is to say, us.
And by foreign, I mean vaguely familiar,
partially recognized in the unseen depth
of everything beneath the seam.

In a While

What have you hidden, and where?
Pull it out of me with your teeth, your word,
and find that it is you, repeated.
It is startling to meet yourself,
dissimilar and the same.
Did you appear or were you always here?
Someday we’ll crawl out of this dark lake,
and become lucid, be given bodies
to hold our spirits.

Now

At the Immortality Tree,
the wind is gorgeous enough — it opens its ears;
meet me at the transparency, the dreamline,
and then later, for the love of god, meet me
beyond the burning crown, at the flesh.
There are things I want to tell you.
The wind curves around my words
and carries them out, and through.
They are shining wishbones in your hand.

Alorah Welti (she/her) is a nineteen-year-old Minnesota-born feminist, synesthete, and emerging poet and artist. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Allium, Inklette, The Origami Review, and others. She is a recipient of the Daniel Manacher Prize for Young Artists by the Sandisfield Arts Center. She lives on stolen Mohican and Wabanaki land, just north of North Adams, Massachusetts, with her family.