Poetry by Sarah Leavens, Fall 2012
steam rises from hot rocks
sweat, oil, eucalyptus
blurred breasts
beside me
needle my pores,
force
my evaporation:
somewhere,
someone i have never
met
catches
in a throng
of waving fists.
i drip
here, imagine myself trapped
gasping.
my towel falls
apart
at my hip; I press
its wet edge
to my chest,
I cannot
let it
open.
somewhere,
adhan rises,
lilted protest, a people flips
from back onto belly
and things sizzle.
my thighs
are pink
and must
be kept
covered.
I do not
understand
the easy intimacy
of words,
bodies—
the shape
of things shorn:
a nude cedar sauna, the fullthroated
voice of intention.
I cannot
cry
at this: my mouth
is chapped
Sarah Leavens is the 2012-13 “Out of the Forge” writer-in-residence in Braddock, PA. She received her MFA in Poetry and Nonfiction from Chatham University, where she served as the Margaret Whitford Fellow and organized the monthly reading series Word Circus in collaboration with Most Wanted Fine Art Gallery. Her recent work has appeared in Fourth River and Weave; she teaches writing and visual art in Pittsburgh.