slp
What we say
I am a Lapp you say mottled bruised
Yes I know I say to you
I love the North and Northern snows and Northerners:
Men with black beards in rough wool make me hot.
I sing for Finland for the lost Nordic homes.
But you are not Norse you say to me
In fact you are a bit of a Greek.
Yes I say I agree I agree
But you are a Lapp.
And what does that mean? you ask
I say I cannot draw you a map.
It doesn’t work quite like that.
A Greek and a Lapp. But where will they live?
I say I know you can answer this.
Yes you admit
We live in the world.
Where Lapp is a term I’m not sure you should use.
We live inside us: twinned souls I insist
Serpents twined round the staff of Asclepius.
Twinned souls yes yes you respond
Who is Asclepius?
A surgeon a healer raised by a centaur.
Centaurs you say I can understand.
Cousins of a sort.
We Samìs husband reindeer if Samì I am.
The world began in fire and ice.
There now:
You see?
We came from the armpits of two great giants.
The North is a place of darkness and cold.
The threat of the North is shaped like a woman or
you say mottled bruised Or a giant.
Oh that is more sad.
Perhaps you are not a Lapp after all.
After all when do we choose.
The healer was able to raise the dead.
Sometimes a scandal: he even got paid.
You are indeed a bit of a Greek.
Yes I can reason all choral tragedy.
Trips back and forth from the land of the dead.
But not for too long I wax I am in love.
I am trying very hard not to look back.
Orpheus sang his sweet songs so direly.
And who is Orpheus?
A tender young wretch wrecked.
Wrecked.
I am trying very hard not to look back.
It’s a long way from Finland I suppose
Longer you say
Longer from Lapland.
This all makes me sad.
I don’t think Greek is a good fit for me.
Then what will you be?
Whatever you are.
I am a Lapp you say to me
I have a zither made of fish bones.
The whole of nature delights when I play.
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before.
Are you following?
O yes I agree
I try I say
slp is a poet, songwriter, musician, and educator living in Colorado, who can be found vaguely under-promoting her first studio album widow’s daughter or hermette-ing with her Smith-Corona typewriter and her melancholia. Her manuscripts have been finalists multiple times for the Ahsahta Sawtooth Prize, as well as the Ashahta, Slope, and Gazing Grains Chapbook Prizes. You may find more of her work in the Taggart tribute at Jacket2, Better: Literature & Culture, Denver Quarterly, and in miniature from Gazing Grains. She lived with a dog named Fred. Originally from New York City,
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