from Systems: IV
Sophie Sills

In every atom are a hundred blazing suns. —Mahmud Shabistari 

The impulse of the universe to bring like and like together happens everyday. Particles 
distend. Streaming from my chest, fingers full of fish. The sound is a shape of birds 
emerging from the city. Their unknitting makes passages closing behind them. And no 
end in the pinch between land and dark. A lattice of ropes, veranda, a handful of hair 
strands. Each separate as whole. Hippocrates said all things are in sympathy. A million 
edges and eyes enfold in a dark city. As they do, I open a window to the city, to the smell 
of a strange lake. I am without individual existence. Knowing and fear have the same 
form as bird and fish. Animal to flight is woven together with the smell of water and cold 
happening over a lake. Weeping with fists of fish is only one pattern. The objects are 
solid and moving beneath.

//   Advance   //