Soma
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
but Soma hides the math, the more-than-
carrying, the soul blown into the sow’s ear purse.
Her heart two-steps, now flesh, now metaphor,
while her mind—the brain when it blushes—
gently nets a halo: thought bubbles and unlit bulbs.
The larynx and the voice’s box of words waiting
to be said, the fundus full of swallowtails Soma never
swallowed. How can we know the dancer from the dance?
Note: The italicized question with which the poem ends comes from Yeats’s “Among School Children.”
Jane Zwart teaches English at Calvin University, where she also co-directs the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Her poems have previously appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, Ploughshares, Cincinnati Review, Rattle, and TriQuarterly, as well as other journals and magazines.