Self-Portrait as Juliet’s Nurse with Betta splendens and Pulsar

by Dayna Patterson

the Nurse cursed in
the pantry, and every thing in extremity
—Romeo and Juliet

Put away a moment the dagger
and poisoned lips. Put away the needles
threaded with blood. Put away the sword
and flame thrower and bowl of splendid
fighting fish waving their fins like flags
of surrender. Put away the vials of virus,
blue-footed mushrooms, and sassy bark.
Put it all away. For half a breath, listen.

Child, you think you are bride to chaos.
You feel you are brinking a black hole.
Put away the violin out of tune, bow
ragged with snapped intention, body
carved in dream. Should you cantilever
the question mark of your sadness, like
a tortoise emergent? Should you gather
supernova residue, broom the heavy stuff of stars
shattered, the gold, the iron, forged in holy heat?

What if you allow an end to be a nebula,
like cracking the crab and tearing joint
from joint, its white flesh in butter
now your flesh? Like maggots mouthing carrion,
and the shit of worms blackening soil,
like the translation of forest floor, saplings
rippling from evergone stumps. Why should you fall

into so deep an O? Ladybird, what if
your mantra, your chant began—
stand up, begin again, startover, start
over, like a pulsating star’s insistence.

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DAYNA PATTERSON is the author of Titania in Yellow (Porkbelly Press, 2019) and If Mother Braids a Waterfall (Signature Books, 2020). Her creative work has appeared recently in POETRY, AGNI, and Passages North, among others. She is the founding editor-in-chief of Psaltery & Lyre and a co-editor of Dove Song: Heavenly Mother in Mormon Poetry.