Sophia Mautz

It’s hot in the middle of the storm. It’s humid

gray. Makes the dust bloat. I can hardly breathe in

it, air moving too fast for me to hold onto, wind’s body

swimming over mine. Like being in a room when all

anyone wants is a little power over you, arms stroking

against heads, black wide glass eyes darting, staying afloat...



In dance class we are told to fall forward–

hurtling our bodies ahead, asking to be caught

by our selves once we get there. What I put forward as

flesh gets pushed back by wind. Our bodies hurtle against

each other, one risen from the sea, one made out

of clay... Power is a series of erasures. You fall into it. You

push against it. It pushes back. The wind is full of coyotes

saying, saying –



Some days, I say, I don’t think of it

at all. I wake up having already been loved

by the entrance of the day, the day that says come out

now. The day that says the earth is your friend and you

have a secret between you– it is your life. You walk out

under the blue carpet of night and see planes migrating



overhead, then a fountain, this magnolia tree, its pink

fisted buds newly unclenched, dormancy beat open,

pushing up against the seed-coat... Here we are,

we did not ask to be woken, though it was not easy,

not safe, we open as oblations on a dark branch,

pink-veined luscious mouths drummed open by rain.

A voice inked with water and wind rises. And the black

loam beneath.

A woman is / turned into a lake she is
                 secretly pleased. Great blue herons
are moving across the sky / and the body

of this twisted oak its / arrowed branches / flung
                 in every direction / is now
leafless / so that its outstretched
                 arms do not / run the risk / of breaking
their own weight / cold sweat poured down

my imprisoned limbs wherever / I moved my foot
                 a pool gathered / that this water could
bruise me my voice / caught in bird-call I
&                 want you to put me in the ground
with my mouth open / and when we say earth

we mean human
                 earth / foxes have no history
transcripts / know not how their great grandparents
                 died / and who among us / records / the continual

losses / it is lighter / to be fleshless / a beetle colony
                 takes three months to eat / a white dog clean
like a hymn / say / I will be taken / knowing
                 the bones will remain.


The first line of this poem is inspired by Jia Tolentino’s New Yorker Article “How a Woman Becomes a Lake.” The other italicized portions of this poem are taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, when the nymph Arethusa recounts how Ceres, the river god, tried to rape her and as she was fleeing from him, she turned into a lake.