Jai-Michelle Louissen is a Scottish poet, living in The Netherlands. Writing in hypnagogic, meditative states, yet rooted in her Celtic culture she writes of the early loss and trauma through an imagist, mythic and natural lens. Published in various journals, her first chapbook in July 2022 by Sunday Mornings at the River.
honeysuckle
I wail silently for more
a hand – but the isle is shrouded
vestigial bud
telomere of bride
there are spells whittled into my skin
drawn irises thick with cruelty
and blood of myth forgotten
bloedwydd – her shadow lain across mine
unquiet wing
ravenous moan of exiled meadow
“she is not a curse”
listen heart
I carve an owl from my shoulder
the gold that is loosened there
soars an expanse beyond all naming
apple tree
as the wood widens
there is a wayward luminance,
fairy heat
unshackled
pulled from the veins of roses
from the earth’s insides, let me
let me be
daughtered here
I leave my hand on the loom
miranda out on the tide
her voice low and breathless
musky in sweetgrasses
I whisper to her the language of birds
wrest symbols from my collar bone
there is light enough for apple seeds
sorceress I am
hazel
I sit in the quiet
of the moon’s dark
course
marked rune
stone of my suffering
saturn, a tidal child
orbits
unseen by the hearts
scalloped hem
I reach in
unearthed
sophia in clay
blackened statue
ancient power
I draw my vowels of acquiescence
a foal gallops, stays by my shoulder
and the water comes to me
I know her words
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By In Parentheses in IP Volume 7
32 pages, published 1/15/2022
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