Arlene DeMaris
2025 Michelle Boisseau Poetry Prize Finalist
—
The big note
Everything in the universe is made
of one element, which is a note,
a single note.
— Frank Zappa
Pours like maple
syrup over the earth settling
into what we call the holy places,
full of god’s longing for us.
The note seeks out pipe
organs. Splits trees like lightning.
Sets off thunder, typhoons,
picks up fiddles and accordions,
plays them like a newborn, like a tonic,
anything for our attention.
The hatch of a dragonfly
vibrates in the key of C,
composing hundreds of self-portraits
in its scant measure of life before
the trout leaps. We spread our share
of the note across the oceans,
all creatures feeling our tune—its bend
towards death—along their sensitive
sidelines. We sing their bodies plastic,
unhand them of their only weapon
against us; our love
for their lives. The note breathes
in the stingray and the whale,
in the deepest marine heart,
breaks the surface to join
other timbres rising from the earth.
It takes notice of how often
we turn its kiss aside, forgetting
how much of us is salt water,
how much of us is music.
Arlene DeMaris is a poet and freelance writer living in Avon, Connecticut with her husband, Michael. Arlene’s poetry has appeared in Maine Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Radar Poetry, Connecticut River Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Bear Review, The Missouri Review Poem-of-the-Week, and other publications. She received the 2024 Connecticut Poetry Award from the Connecticut Poetry Society, of which she is a member. Her debut poetry collection, Instructions for Use, will be available this summer from Terrapin Books, and Amazon and Barnes & Noble online.
Arlene holds an MFA in poetry from Bennington College.
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