Three Poems by Taylor Light

Aubade for Cassiopeia

The northern sky is a panopticon
where, all night, synodic,
you delivered a single letter:

“W” or “M,” depending on
the season, in flits
of orange and pink. Specular,

I spent a long time on your replications,
observing the neon script,
beyond any real noesis. The chair

from which you wrote (your prison)
tilted,
a geomathematical affair,

pulsing some clear-cut omen,
an image
to be misread—the way a broken mirror

is mistaken for bad luck (one’s reflection
was said to reveal the soul).

And minute
by minute, since seeing you there,

your shape captured the high-range mountains,
and cosmic spatters
of wet-webs, water-

heavy, where each dew-blot
fastened
to light, your letter

made visible by imaginary slypes. Constellations
are the secret-
keepers of language. Let me

resist the morning’s invitation,
its burning chair, its
reminder of what must disappear.

Conchology

He tooke his Trumpet in his hand, hys Trumpet was a shell
Of some great Whelke or other fishe, in facion like a Bell . . .

— ‘Ov. Met. 1.382–3’, tr. Arthur Golding

Crafted not for song but as a messenger,
the shell’s call could access axis mundi
with notes that fell between the C and D.
Resounding from the caves of Mesoamerica,
the priests (who could read ecological signs)
trumpeted against turns of rain or drought,
or signaled when the first fruits began to sprout.
The larger the shell, the lower the cry.

It used to be a familiar sound—a felt music
amplified through psychoacoustics—
now left for conchologists to excavate.
In Knossos, they found miniatures in clay
among remains of terra cotta sanctuary.
Give me the red break of day. Awaken me.

Hygieia

What survives of her: a hymn from Ariphron,
the Aesculapian snake—olive-yellow or bronze,
with amber irises, and sharply angled ventral scales—
and the cup or jar she’d carry, which never failed
to fill with water. Coiled around her waist,
the snake would drink. Her arm remained in place.

Taylor Light’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, The Missouri Review,
Poet Lore, Poetry Ireland Review, Boulevard, Literary Matters, and elsewhere. Holding an MFA in poetry from the University of Florida, she has received support from the Stanford Humanities Center, the London Arts-Based Research Centre, and the Convivio Conference in Postignano, Italy. Her latest work was presented at Stanford University, and her upcoming work will be presented at the University of Cambridge. Currently, she is a PhD student at Southern Methodist University where she serves as social media co-manager for Project Poëtica.