Chain, Spell #87, and White

by Hari B. Parisi

Chain


A secret is only a thought,

a thought, not a razor blade,

not a razor blade, not cyanide,

not cyanide, but deadly,

deadly if kept long enough,

long enough and you forget,

forget that it mattered,

mattered that you lost something,

lost something irretrievable,

were given the secret instead.

Spell #87
  	 for women only


Drink still water from a blue glass. Eat no food. 
Fight with someone you love (preferably male) 

about something trivial, such as how he makes 
gravy, ties his shoes. Strip naked. Memorize 

your body. You needn’t touch it, but it won’t 
hurt. Sit in the sun. Don’t look at your watch. 

Tears can be a problem. Throw on a red scarf 
if there’s a welling up. Friends may notice that 

you aren’t there. It’s not your concern. When
the sun begins to fall, you must spin—first 

towards what you fear most, then towards what 
you desire. They may be the same. Walk until 

you are in tall grass bent by the wind. Beaver 
and red-tailed hawk are there. Press your face 

to the earth, your chest and loins. Linger. Slip 
into the waters. Join the salmon. Swim upstream.

White


Swans on a mirror. 
Winter.
Switzerland. Basel, perhaps.
The question: why?
What do you think—
if there were no war,
no women, or
time to weep,
death without ifs.
Could we,
my sweet,
consider the worth 
of swallowing whole
not answers
but sparrows? Whales,
the swinging tides,
weighing
how the great maw
wails us back,
wants us
to wend—swim 
in her seamless bowl, her 
willow
of always. And 
when you ask,
I say Not now, 
sit here awhile— 
touch cobwebs,
wheat,
the small bones in our wrists.
I say, why don’t we, love,
wait
until tomorrow?

Hari B. Parisi’s (formerly Hari Bhajan Khalsa) poems have been published in numerous journals and are forthcoming in The Blood Pudding, Two Hawks Quarterly and Inklet. She is the author of three volumes of poetry, most recently, She Speaks to the Birds at Night While They Sleep, winner of the 2020 Tebot Bach Clockwise Chapbook Contest. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband.