which softness may I touch?
the scars from your falls
vulva cupped hand
to be in the world to be with the world
even if I don’t know what
to do with zir
follow the inner flickering tenderly
try the rectangular eyes
with both feelers I draw circles
in a silica script
how we practise dangling without holding on
off the cliff of Time a finger points
this body was once made for dying
when a raven allows me to stroke zir back
I accept zir invitation
for ze whispers a chunk of future into my ear
zir claws know the core of the earth
circling above
human size the anomaly
a turf hut without windows I am
a butterfly made of jawbones and teeth
narrate the night
slow down finger pulse when something rouses from sleep
I who are many and not the same
we who use touch to understand
we are Sheila put everything in our mouth
atop the volcanic rock hollows wait for us mossy odes
an instrument nourished by elves
desiring these rocks
our body reveals a tenderness in them
they give us a whiff of permanence
Sheila learns to traverse
and embody them playfully zir stony choreography
when I stroke zir our skins overlap
differences roughen up
love being an unknown sound
a wave that balances and comes boldly to its senses
direct me upright
as a velvety calcite
when we become bodies of water river-like
live with the sei whales of Sedna
widen the iliac crest
as we quietly bop along
until water folds us into zir pockets
and within us the knowledge that our land-senses only coalesce slowly
down here we are ear dust Lilith
repositioning the otoliths
we lift and lower our chest tidally
darkness turns into a light embrace
above us swathes of water the new skies
and the song is a body which sings
I awake in the nature that I am and allow
also the nature that you are we
sense your quivering octopus
and write your internal wisdom into our genes I
move like lava like fish
that flee from you into endlessly soft contact
I dive
for a rock must repeat itself as rock
to be rock
follow the nose along the joint fern I am hypersensitive
watch the tips of the tundra I flush from it
don’t hold on no just feel
the urge which is calling our name
polar fox
this is the wilderness in me wide
on the inside a scratching
no home
we are permeable scent-driven
our life ripples in cycles along many lines
we are enough omnivores
stars as scars of our ancestors
intimacy as not-knowing as resistance
the light is magical and everyone gets a soup
rain drops as big as birds
krías snipes neighing I fly
low
among the mossy plains the soaking poles everything is swamp
undistinguishable what’s river what’s ground
pliant arctic thyme crowberries
white caps ravenous genders
near the spume
wings of sweat grow on my back
the krías lead the way letting the crystals settle
we fall into the shadow of the Atlantic
a throaty voice finds its tune I have feathers gentle fish
centuries what a body is
listen to this earth as ze renews zirself
some days ze breathes freely under our feet
celebrating with us in this clump
as a sharp-edged fragment with finely ground and glassy texture
we invented ourselves without a model
we are love wherever we turn our magic
flows
we are the so-called mistake the untamable glitch
we are experience we are a firm fist
we are volcanoes
and we carry an old fire in our core
from the margins inward we change all maps
we are lava uncontrollable liquid rock
the more we deepen our bond the more
we can unlock
Translated from German into English by Sophie Seita