Temple

I. [slepo] something blind

A Dr. med. warns my face, paternally inflected,
Slim projection, he says.
It is invisibly nestled in the seam of me
                              & my choice
                    of obsession.
No cause for concern!, sticks his pat on my back.
It is healthy! sexual behavior
for anyone inside my body.

II. [oko] eye

First sight you forget, so I won’t mention.
Next sight I forbid the use of vocal cords
save vowels.
                        Your escaping breath lives
                        hot in these lungs for days.

III. strange derivative

A new dream swelled in shape
of a formerly undocumented bone.
This belonged to me. I toyed
with its flush & gatheredness.
All my shores were maraschino red
& slush & shattered where you underlay me—
I was true but unreliant.

IV. surrounding the i

You left your name & borders
more often than I did.
We got conceived
in a capital
Coeur.

V.

The place you want kissed is temple,
[slepoočnica]—I remember.

I eat it by heart.

The Serbo-Croatian word slepoočnica means “temple”, referring to the soft, fleshy area on the side of the head. The word combines “slepo” (blind), “oko” (eye), and “nica” (place), literally translating to “blind eye place.”

Mirthe van Popering is a writer and translator based in Berlin. She studied Cultural Analysis in Amsterdam, writing at The Writers Studio New York, and poetry with Tracy Fuad at the Berlin Writers’ Workshop. Her work dismantles—moving through rupture, subversion, and the strange edges of desire. Poems have appeared in Passengers Journal, Hypertopia, and Poetry Trapper Keeper. Mirthe’s spoken word fundraiser EP Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free is available on Bandcamp: untileverybodyisfree.bandcamp.com. Online, if the stars align: @mirthpop.