The Beginning of
voice
is air & water
is the teeth
of mountains
& knees of cypress
in hard swamps
Cooper’s feather
glossing the surface
of ponds, is the other
is the other &
the other, is wanting
is the death
of the known
crowded song
clutch of hearts
jolts that slip
bereft beneath the
waves, consciousness
bathing in bright moon-
light, the odd
moment that shocks
you out of the car
The Beginning of
voice
The world will go on
without the lone pine
except will it?
tiny words collect
like hatched spiders
crawling the walls
the privet outside
with its white blooms
does not care
you would not like me
if we met in person
I’m wooden
I like to keep it
small & quiet
I like my kitchen table
sliding doors, the woosh
of distant cars, the odd
crow knocking
The Beginning of
voice
I see you
I am you
the wall
behind me
pretzels
& crumbles
I sit in bed
dreading being
human
all day, playing
at computer
screens, feeling
out of sync
sunk into brain-
softness
into earth’s
core, which was
never molten
fiery hell—
what’s bigger
than a bird
but smaller
than god
when you know
you’re dead
you hold a few
messages back
The Beginning of
voice
The cradled
surface of us
water, mouths, knees
the earth turns
& turns again
glasses filled
with moon
our nightmare
our time already
written against
gathering. The two
of us glanced
soaked with
the kind of strong
that finds its drums
in the artful throb
of pursuing
a creature
finds its mate
on the highways
we learned
the secrets of the road-
side, the trees
thrumming
our ankles. I sat
in the once-woods,
you anchored,
echo
a tree calls itself
a tree? Everything
melted to carrion
a 2500-year-old
cypress lives
in the swamps
where the bones
of her enemies
bob up & down
up the coast
kings sit
with their buddies
& boils
& bunions
demented
laughter
filling the
empty
halls
…
echo
what was the original
earth-smell
if not rain
momentum
of convex
drill-drops
driving
into crust
& mantle, releasing
the mud-
sour milk of Earth’s
breath, before
boneyard
& steel
where stone
& blood
flowed
as runoff.
echo
every house
should know
how to
protect
itself
an elderly woman
trains her cats
to steal
jewelry,
high up
on a mountain
in a stone
box, a map
on her lap
the cats
bring home
wonders
from the world
below
a world of
amassed
sapphires
pearls &
gleaming
baubles
echo
they both
make a sound
but only one
signals above
& below, only one
is an organ
for connecting
gradually working
itself into
the weeds, to suffer
an aria in the air
of us, intense
desire to grow
commercially
for profit
especially
in tropical
arrangement
Lex Orgera is a poet, essayist, herbalist, and editor whose third book of poems is Agatha (JackLeg Press 2025). She is also the author of a memoir-in-essays, Head Case: My Father, Alzheimer’s & Other Brainstorms (Kore Press 2021). Orgera can be found at crowandthepoet.substack.com, lexorgera.com, or in her yard digging in the dirt.