7 Quotes by Donika Kelly

Refuse the old means of measurement.Rely instead on the thrumming wilderness of self. Listen.-From "Out West

You grow. You are large. You are a 19th century poem.All of America is inside you,a catalogue of lives and landand burrowing things.-From "Catalogue

What is the metaphorfor two animalssharing the same space?Marriage?We share a practice,you and I,a series of postures.

I am not land or timbernor are youocean or celestial body,but rather we arethe small animalswe have always been.

You bear a sword and shield, remind meof her labor, her stoning gaze. What beastwill your blade free next? What call will you loosefrom another woman's throat?

What the tongue wants. Supplication and the burn of crystals expanding. To be, always, a waxing, a waning, and, in waxing again, not ever the same. Waste and deferral. Accumulation and deferral. You are flesh, and you are water, though of the flesh, you are only muscle, and of the water, you are saltless and clean. Be a caution, a reckoning, be a thing that breaks before it bends.

I have never known a field as wildas your heart.-From "Love Poem: Centaur