Poetry

to conjure / conjure away

by Susanne Sophie Schmalwieser

we’ve been speaking since january or so
and now the trees are growing flowers
mostly pinks and whites
i tell you how the hills in Morocco rest soft against the sky like camel backs
you tell me how you don’t tend to assume the people you meet will fall in love with you

we walk down ring street (Vienna)

your psychic says your greatest love will be a climber
i try to scratch the callus off my hands to have our veins beat closer when we touch
i wonder if you feel different getting dressed in the morning knowing you’ll see me
and what you would say if i told you

my mornings now bear the shape of your name
meandering through my synapses

you love me like the shoe rubbing against my heel loves the flesh underneath
i love you on the last train home on a thursday evening
you cry because you hear the world feel;
emotions pour into your brain like chirping crickets in the rainforest
maybe you really are the one person that does not think they’re kinder than the rest
maybe you’re the one that’s kinder than the rest

would i fear less if language ceased to mean?
or now that i know how to conjure in hebrew
or to conjure away
could i tell you how i don’t want to withdraw
my evening hours from yours?
we have these difficult kinds of conversations that cut my stomach open
but with you i just lie there and wait till the blood has dried

i zip my open chest
up to my chin like a turtleneck
my heart stings as i greet it with movement;
it asks me, again?
or maybe it’s just that sound of it beating i have not gotten used to

we stand at the crossroads
your shadow draws me to a foreign land
that smells like the home i made up in child’s play
or maybe it’s just its sound of it calling me i am now getting used to

Appeared in Issue Fall '24