Shape of Things Left Unpromised
Nearing the end of summer,
the olives bud plump and green
on the trees farther afield.
It takes a second to picture myself
standing on the edge of the valley
—the way an explorer might scan
a virgin land. Come night, I become
a tree rooted in the world, a root that
knows the nooks and crannies of
this soil like the back of its hand.
Some days I meander along the
rivers for hours, root for lost souls
of the desert. Some days I merge with
the sea, only to pour out into the ocean.
I lend an ear to the sea creatures, and
they are ghostly, ethereal. Yet another
universe in which the mammals suffer,
pretending to be unborn under a bank
of moss-covered rocks. A universe
that devours its newborns, bury them
in the sand. A universe that has no
responsibilities, just some flesh and bones.
Olives and vines and trees.
And the world talks back when it feels
like. You are no one, it says, nothing to
take seed in this world. You have no
home, no friends. Nowhere to take your
business elsewhere. Where you can be
someone else. And just like that, I’m
denied passage into the underworld,
left with nothing but wine and olives
and handfuls of earth to savor. I become
the earth, dissolving back into pebbles and
dirt. I become the leaves, branching myself
into olive pits. Willing myself back to being,
giving birth to myself. But the world remains
indifferent, spinning at ease in its arrogant
majesty. The planet is the partner I know I’ll
never have, the one permanent body I’ll never
be able to touch. I’ll take the shape of things
left unpromised—a mouth to bite into the olive;
the sun to bathe myself in. I know it’s all
possible. Probable. A world in which I’m new.
My olives, too. All the world’s children.
Whispering to me in riddles, swaying along
my branches like on a swing.
Wetlands
we never kissed in the city
only in cattail wind
in the hush of fog-heavy reeds
where no one asked who’s who
you called the frogs our choir
your fingers learning
what dusk does to skin
mud claimed our soles
like a second inheritance
we let it
your nail beds
smelled of algae & me
Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, Trampset, JMWW, and Normal School, among other journals. Their work has been selected or nominated for anthologies including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Wigleaf Top 50. They are currently working on their first novel in Philadelphia and Amsterdam.