al tendere

al tendere

Jessica Arcus

derivation of attention; to stretch towards

Why is it so hard to give
my gaze to the thing
heavy with honey?
Though I am being gently
wound in - silken threads woven
to heart space and throat -
I am allowing myself to hang
bound, distracted, heavy as a rock
- what am I afraid of?

Open me up, Great Lover -
pull apart my ribs,
run a scalpel around the
circumference of my crown,
split my soles, slice me
hip to hip -
so that all that is within me
can stretch towards
that which it hungers for.

---

Jessica Arcus
Poet & Mother

Jessica is compelled to give voice to the quiet and overlooked things – watching for divine presence in the day-to-dayness of life. She performed at the 2022 New Zealand poetry slam finals and has been published in journals such as Landfall, Catalyst, Rapture: an Anthology of Performance Poetry from Aotearoa/NZ and Mayhem. You can read more of her work over on Instagram @jessica.arcus

Photography by Alan Cabello