Curious and Counting

Arisa White

How do I get in your atmosphere?
Tell me about your signs, look me planetarily
—those Venuses in your eyes?

There was no thought after you
and I wrote it down. Wandered
to the wailing with my back exposed.

My kind of Sunday, your knees
buffalo and kicking up plains.
We go sockless for beauty.

Ribbons unwind bring us to tied,
I’m at your symmetry, remembering
all your digits and your lucky number nine.

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“I came across this poem in a journal from October 2016. I was amused with its music and strange imagery—so intimate and precise and resonant with historical and religious referents. The poem invites you to be curious and to enjoy the sensations and wonder that it evokes.”
—Arisa White

Arisa White is a Cave Canem poet whose work is rooted in Black women ways of knowing. The author of Who’s Your Daddy (Augury Books, 2021), among other titles, her work has been supported by Hedgebrook, the Fine Arts Work Center, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences, and other organizations. She works as an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Colby College.

Who’s Your Daddy
(Augury Books, 2021)

“Virginia Street” by Jennifer Hayashida
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“N” by Maurya Simon
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Thanks to Donika Kelly, author of The Renunciations (Graywolf Press, 2021), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read or listen to a Q&A about Kelly’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.

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Poem-a-Day - "Curious and Counting" by Arisa White