All in by Sarah Sala

by Sarah Sala

At my worst, I control the boundaries of my form,
and yet, when divine, the self permeates the
physical world. It’s true: the atoms of our bodies
grieve each other in death just like a color doesn’t
occur alone—but takes meaning from other colors.
The moon was a changeable star that ruled men’s
fate. Water was green and not blue to medieval
cartographers. The complexity of ocher begs        
the viewer to grapple with it. We are swiftly
becoming an indoor species. Yet, scientists know
more about outer space than the Earth’s oceans.
Humans brought the natural world into their homes
to combat the rise of machines. Without us
knowing, trees converse via latticed fungi. Gender
isn’t something one is, but  does. We are a vast
assembly of nerve cells — the continents longing
for each other. 

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Sarah Sala is a queer poet of Polish-Lebanese descent. Her debut poetry collection, Devil’s Lake, is forthcoming from Tolsun Books in June 2020. She is the founder of the free poetry workshop Office Hours and assistant poetry editor at The Bellevue Literary Review. Her work appears or is forthcoming in BOMB, The Southampton Review, and Poetry Ireland Review, among others. She teaches at New York University, and lives in Manhattan. Visit her at sarahsala.com.