Suzanna Schlemm © 2025

 

                      by Marcy Rae Henry


 

at the traffic light


you see street in line defining shape, light informing color. curved lines make perfect circles around primary and secondary hues. balance and imbalance everywhere. vanishing points in the distance. i see every lovable syllable. three lines of haiku in ginsberg’s american sentence.  if only i could stay in poetic mind as if the root canal were the first snow. you say if only there was more nuance, the way some poet said something enlightening somewhere. on piano F# is the same as G♭. on violin they can be two different sounds. not everyone can hear this but that’s not what you mean. you want words where four thin lines make a thick one. trompe-l'œil  of seven marks making a table for a platter of emotions. if i could stay in poetic mind until the light changes color, i would tell you: in zazen to name something is to relinquish it.

 

Marcy Rae Henry is a multidisciplinary Latina artist from Mexican-America and author of dream life of night owls, We Are Primary Colors, and the body is where it all begins. Her collection death is a mariachi won the May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize and will be published in 2025.