MELISSA ELEFTHERION

 

 

field guide to dreaming down

 

conflict//membrane of a superorder
“good looking girl” metabolizes
axiology and its sharks

confinement//tiny wingless member
howl fine species
howl to the open sea

Alate with waving hairs
Graph of the glaucous leaf
Venous map of air
Confessions of the //body

 

 

underwater

 

freshwater lilies bob
ululate the sea mother
a discipline of no obstacles
a discipline of oneiromancy
what’s a way toward gliding on land
here a stem   here balloons
down a cement slide
glossolalia alphabet perimeter
      Isis
apiary candor  subcutaneous swelling
a swarm ascends
the women      turgor of whirlpool
rupturing tissue

Melissa Eleftherion is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018) & ten chapbooks, including trauma suture (above/ground press, 2020) & abalone (poems-for-all, 2021). Her poems & prose have been widely published in various literary journals & nominated for awards including the Pushcart Prize & Best of the Net. Born & raised in Brooklyn, Melissa currently lives in Northern California where she manages the Ukiah Library, curates the LOBA Reading Series, & serves as the Poet Laureate of Ukiah. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.