Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday.

 

How to take the plunge

 

Walk down to the lake
with your step-father’s axe.

 

Stamp your boots upon
the crackling shore.

 

Test your weight on its
veneer of glass

 

while signs of life rise
up through fossil leaves.

 

Take the axe and bring it down.
It can start at any point.

 

When the lake seeps in
through the burgeoning hole,
cup the pooling water in your hand.

 

Yet, do not drink it—
anoint instead your head
in benediction.

 

All new acts require faith.

 

Turn the axe-blade on its back
and send the ice into abyss.

 

You may measure the gash
with your fingers and palms:

 

the hole must be greater than
the sum of your parts.

 

Take off your robe or coat or clothes—
whatever ails you, leave it be.

 

Place your reddened hands
on either brink.

 

Look once more to the shore.

 

Know when you go (at last!)
you can’t come back.

 

Kayla O’Meara is a queer poet and educator based in Boston, MA where she teaches French language and literature. Her bilingual work can be found in mothertongue: A multilingual journal of the arts. A short series of her visual poems is also forthcoming in the next issue of Revolute Lit .005. When she is not exploring the city, she finds inspiration in the New Hampshire woods and the rolling hills of Burgundy, France. More of her work can be found at https://kaylaomeara.wordpress.com/

 

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx