Maya Schwartz: Two Poems

the ball, or on dancing again

we are doing spirals
which means twisting your body
around itself, not your whole body
but just one part of it or two or three parts
at the same time

at the same time we are also
sliding and pushing and rocking also
jostling always all of us and all of this
at the same time

we are assembling
which means pushing and sliding and rocking and
jostling and spiralling into one identifiable
shape that we make with our
whole body all of it
every piece of it

I always think of an assembly line
all parts of my body being
put together on the
factory floor
made into a commodity
which most often looks like
a ball
with all parts of my body
(all arms and feet and legs and hands and head and shins and forearms pelvis and chest)
folded under me
allfoldedintome


ants of unmemory

we cook whiskey dinner
with a sasamat slinger
stuffed for nothing under artichoke moon
you breathe me better and i      swoon
tiny spoons with handles mismatched
break open the blunder       and relax

squeezing pity by the penny for goodness
sakes i confess                  to a life
of begging morality and morseley
filigree pretending, repenting, unletting
one last chance at admitting
it takes time, time          and quite a lot of swimming

stroking keys like gun smoke jolting us
into absurdity                  i eschew
the meaning of                   certainty
and veer away from              anonymity
i cry and circle back                to a time
when along my blue desk crawled
ants                                        of unmemory



Maya Schwartz is a graduate student at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. Her research is in contemporary Canadian poetry and literature.