Where with wherewithal.
I fixed my eye. On some
underdark peak. Rain sharpened
in white fangs. Mist
forked into glittering.
Tongues. Made fluttering
tunes. Was errant.
In my wandering. I.
Left alone. I.
Ate nothing. Drank
nothing. Spied violet
berries. Beaked
from branches.
How long. Was I
there. In the shroud.
Of that mountain. False
sun seething. Even in dark.
Where in the distance.
A walker walked. With
me. Ambling limbs.
An apparition. Weaving
in and out. Of the light.
Familiar. And strange.
I knew then. I am
my own nothing.
A shadow. Cascading
within. Shining particles
of mist. And in the distance.
A half-fox blazed. Across
the absences of grass.
It had my face. It spoke.
So softly. And insistently.
Saying. It was. What.
I was. It was saying.
how did this poem begin for you?
“Brocken Specter” came after months of studying modern Irish poetry with the brilliant Guinn Batten. The figure of the spéir-bhean (in Irish vision poems, a woman from the other realm with connections to land, country, and Eros) possessed me until I became her; I had a series of waking dreams in which I projected myself into a psychological and geographic terrain of mysticism and mercuriality. The first line I wrote was “I am nothing but my own shadow,” which soon transmuted into “I am my own nothing,” and the rest of the lines immediately followed. This poem is both the beginning and the end of a quest. It is a Brocken specter, a shadow that takes a miraculous form—a me that is not me.
Coming Soon: Our Summer Issue
Two pieces by Annie Ernaux, including a print-exclusive essay. Plus a folio titled "What Was AI?" — with contributions from Sheila Heti, Lauren Oyler, Christopher Sorrentino, and others. Preorder now.
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