EXPECTATIONS
The mist evangelizing before the sun
What a wreck of weather—
The forge from whence I grew
Here I am, rising
Out of morning
Into a continuous ruin
Another tranquil parting
Show me the roses
Take my hand
EVOLUTION
Fog can be an atmospheric condition or
a type of bewilderment—
I am asked to think of ways
In which I can keep it
From settling
I sing, I say, I sing—
It’s affirming because I fill the room
In a way that is
Enjoyable to others
I offer something without taking
I sing softly (and only when the space around me
Feels lacking)
But don’t you realize
You have inherent value
By being,
She says
Not merely through purpose—
What ramblings, I think
How can being
Have value in and of itself?
Unless you are
Something heart-wrenchingly beautiful
A deep-sea creature maybe
A coelacanth
A living history
Proof
Of our growing legs
Which we can use today
To outrun the fog
E.C. Belli is a bilingual poet and translator. Her second book, A Sleep That Is Not Our Sleep, is winner of the 2020 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Selected by Cathy Park Hong, it is forthcoming with Anhinga Press (Jan. 2022). Her debut collection of poems, Objects of Hunger, is winner of the Crab Orchard Poetry Series First Book Award and appeared with Southern Illinois University Press in 2019. Her translation of I, Little Asylum, a short novel by Emmanuelle Guattari, was released by Semiotext(e) for the 2014 Whitney Biennial, and The Nothing Bird, her translation of some selected poems by Pierre Peuchmaurd, appeared with Oberlin College Press (Fall 2013). She is the recipient of a 2010 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans and her work in French has appeared in Europe: revue littéraire mensuelle and PO&SIE(France), among others.