Vismai Rao

On trying to be less of a noun

​I’ve seen shapes dissolve
into loveliness, body become

a feeling, knowable—Take spoon.
How a humble piece of cutlery

turns warm, a thing you can sleep in,
wrap yourself with. Friend turned verb

in the 1400s: to put it in scientific terms,
switched from matter to energy. I suspect

if you plunge deep enough into the doing
of anything, you become it. Vanish

into its ether. In the center of the room,
my friend: bright pink skirt, hair in a bun,

whirling, then disappearing
into the whirling--

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Vismai Rao’s poems appear in Salamander, RHINO, Rust + Moth, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Pithead Chapel, Psaltery & Lyre, Rogue Agent, SWWIM, & elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Orison Anthology. She serves as Poetry Editor for The Night Heron Barks. You can find her on twitter: @vismairao