Wordplay: Asa Benjamin

by Anna Šverclová ’23

Here at The Words, we want to showcase the exciting talents of our senior Creative Writing majors through a little something we like to call “WordPlay.” This month, we asked Asa Benjamin to share one of their poems.

Asa Benjamin is a senior English (Creative Writing) major and Performance Design and Technologies minor. They have a soft spot for formed poetry (especially sestinas) and fantasy.

Thanks for sharing, Asa!

The Ship Speaks of Her Final Moments

The crash licked her way up me blood-hot.

metal-epiderm my lungs spit backwards

              pushed you all out into the unknown

like a mother i birthed you forward

           through space, umbilical tether gravity

They said I would collide, break all my bones to kiss that land. I asked “Do you promise me?’

they built me in a harbor-bay, a creaking

           knowing before the unknown, metal womb

shaping a silver knife a silver body 

          but that was before i knew any of you

like so many rivets, dropped skittering 

           in my aorta through all my arteries you

call your ship a woman so i became your

          woman. you touched me tool and virtue.

You set me to explore, you know. You always urged me answers.

pilgrimage and pleasure court and funeral

           catalog and query nip and suck

nurture and witness anodized and bled

           succour and executioner killing and alive

cling your daughter’s braids, your hands leavened

            your trials in my belly, consummate your treaties

i clawed for news of your away missions and

           if the laundry ever got finished.

You cried into my liver as if I had any power to stop this. As if I would.

            something you haven’t understood. you spoke me

alive. i am your convoy-versus-mother-spouseandchild

           i am your zenith and your prime. i am component

and the whole. promise me life? then let me live blazing.

While you cried I wondered how it would feel to kiss the ground.

hit me then, pretty and sailing, up the wind

          dash me to sand in your embrace and make it

good. make it good. make it