Pheromone

It is (you, I want) a mystery you maintain

distraction or eccentricities (to suffer) an assay

to distinguish between substance and absence,

a figure of imagination (in myself I am) your figure of speech.

A lion waiting (aware of this): all must come to the watering hole,

patience is not a virtue, it is a necessary pawn,

when one surrenders, the throat grows soft--

the wind carries the scent of Circe.

Note: Italics in parentheticals are Sappho fragment 26 as translated by Anne Carson

Eros shook my mind

Apricot blooms burst
into a perfume piquant
with the possibility
of our
convergence.

Hungry (for battle)
I hear the conch shell’s
ballads of life
in love
with itself.

Dying to live,
falling to awaken
your breath
moves
mountains.

I birth my own being.

Note: The title is Sappho fragment 47 as translated by Anne Carson.

Nichole Turnbloom has MFA in poetry and completed additional training through the institute for Poetic Medicine.You can read her work in Acumen, Journal of Westbrae Literary Group, The Branches, Spillwords, and is forthcoming in IWWG’s 2025 Anthology Write Forward among various other venues.