Calling
by Aza Pace
Where am I going with all this velvet and lace?
No one can make the whole world soft,
but I keep trying. My incantations
fluff the air like cottonwood seeds.
No one can make the world soft
enough for what they love,
but crisp air and cottonwood seeds
make me easier in my bones.
Now, enough of what I love.
What gentle proofs do you count on
to make you easy in your bones?
Robin song, wild daisies, your name called softly—
What gentle proofs! Count them
wherever you’re going. With all this velvet and lace,
robin song, and wild daisies, I call your name softly,
I keep trying my incantations.
No one can make the whole world soft,
but I keep trying. My incantations
fluff the air like cottonwood seeds.
No one can make the world soft
enough for what they love,
but crisp air and cottonwood seeds
make me easier in my bones.
Now, enough of what I love.
What gentle proofs do you count on
to make you easy in your bones?
Robin song, wild daisies, your name called softly—
What gentle proofs! Count them
wherever you’re going. With all this velvet and lace,
robin song, and wild daisies, I call your name softly,
I keep trying my incantations.
Aza Pace’s debut poetry collection, Her Terrible Splendor, won the 2024 Emma Howell Rising Poet Prize and is forthcoming from Willow Springs Books. Her poems appear in The Southern Review, Copper Nickel, Tupelo Quarterly, Crazyhorse, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. She is the winner of two Academy of American Poets University Prizes and holds an MFA from the University of Houston and a PhD from the University of North Texas. She currently teaches at Ohio Wesleyan University.