by Melissa Leto

Melissa Leto, *harnessing form,* digital photograph, 2024. Courtesy of the artist.

dervish; wolf 3

melissa Leto | June 2024 | Issue 34

dream

Faa woke to a stillness only winter offers even the trees
seemed unbreathing not a single imprint of a rabbit foot through snow no birds yet beyond threshold she noticed a sphere swirling every color of spring
over the forest which was so much nearer than she’d thought her longing had created unreasonable distance as though she was not allowed to be held there in the darkness.
whatever you want it to be: veil, door, portal feeling of new story like blood in her mouth

on the other side sound vibrated through the body
she felt the writhing of caterpillar tents tunneling her veins
tasted the wingspan of a bluejay on her tongue and water
magnetized pulled the thought wet her mouth filled her cheeks.

nailed to oak trees: paintings framing women object, object, object,
then one after another released
the leg or voice or spine of a woman poured them out,
haven’t you ever seen a woman climb out of a painting before? reach behind her
for the nail hung her became a shape so unrecognizable the word woman
became something entirely different became a non-word

she ran after them wanting to go where they were going out of the frame
fast as rabbits ran like wolves alone in forests sensing the pack nearby, out of sight
following their trail deeper into the woods until a path of hemlock led her
to an abandoned cottage looked like something to burn for warmth

she stepped closer naturally drawn to decomposition—
ran her fingers along the panels of birch felt them breathing
no eyes no mouths no lungs and yet a pulse?
ear to the planked belly first thud snapped her eyes shut
felt like breathing through another body she felt hands around her ears
pulling her through to another place? time?

she didn’t come to because she hadn’t fallen asleep she was somehow between spaces
caught in the scent of agarwood citrus something floral
she was terrified to open her eyes
feeling an emptiness in her palms arriving without an offering

hemlock

faa’s hands in the fur of rabbits, sliding, ears through her hands silk of them
nothing felt like hands over rabbits except hands over rabbits
how soft the friction was they would hear footsteps for her

led her each time more deeply into the veil of green
to a place a tree she knew from a dream a tree that responded to her
the first time her mouth touched the bark, wanted to swallow her then, but couldn’t

even as she licked it even as her voice honeyed through tree’s rings
it took tree everything to resist tendrilling from and into her then, knowing.
instead stripped the fibers from the hemlock with her own branches, left it braided

an offering outside the portal into Triarch, knowing. time meant
nothing to Triarch. Faa couldn’t have gone one more season without that rope.
muscle memory flared at the bight first knot triggering salt in the body

enough knots for three diamonds down her stomach
each one: body liquid everyone wants the wet ending
holy cypress didn’t they know?

hemlock into rabbits into the bodies of men.
hemlock into fibers into ropes into the hands of Faa.
so many ways to feel weight to go weightless.

INT. TRIARCH: NIGHT

the only hard limit is light. Dervish suspended from coma berenices
just enough star to see breath of color off each rope: aquaroyalgrass
lemon scent off Faa’s hands: soil blood jasmine
swirling Dervish until Faa’s mouth resisting every bodily desire pulls back from the body

leaves her spinning
butterfly harness
tied to the moon
divining refraction

Melissa Leto, *holy trees,* digital photograph, 2024.

Triarch

Faa didn’t know they were tunneling under and through the roots of Triarch
when it happened as though they’d never seen roots
never been cradled by them as though they’d never been held
by a body like that a body tendrilling in all directions
forming their own dome underground bioluminescent
pulsing glittered teal of those sparks nearly neon, moving, water through them

Faa heard something deeper underground
voice through another time
coming through littoral walls sweating translucent blue from their bellies
you don’t always know what you’re following when you’re pulled in or under
you don’t always have the right shoes on to avoid slipping
you don’t always know when earth gives way to sky

when hands pulled her through the walls of Triarch
when she opened her eyes to ursa major lynx Dervish
when the sound underground through tunnels led to water
Faa’s eyes focused sight of Dervish: dream
vines of her scanning Faa light of her shadowing the wall
a sigh so deep from Faa’s mouth cored the beginning right out of the story

INT. TRIARCH: NIGHT

Dervish and Faa wolf water wheel woman
other story of them: steam infused
salt blue lotus lily peach rose petals pulled before they could fall

first thwack sedates Dervish’s rope sliding between Faa’s thumb makes her
wait takes a wrist knot lax limp across shoulders wrist
loop wrist waist kneeling, she pushes her single hand through her hair

nails along the shave bight in her teeth takes her, hand under knees hand under
neck vining her thighs into her waist ankles: one rolls her another
Dervish pushing her feet into Faa measuring lull

no resistance, uses a finger to topple her before cinching Faa between the wings
pulling her Faa couldn’t speak if she wanted to, couldn’t cry
her whole body quaking out of its own frame as each ankle fell from the cradle of a vine

until loop to wrist holds Faa there canes venatici blinking
binds her to the scent of salt moss fur taste of blue filling her
mouth as Dervish fades behind the vines and Faa dissolves into them

Melissa Leto, *coma* *berenice*, digital photograph, 2024. Courtesy of the artist.

nepenthes

you’re right. you probably aren’t understanding the waterwheel well, Dervish can’t root
on land forever, don’t be insane. sometimes they tried getting to Triarch through the water
Dervish couldn’t have something like that happening just like Nepenthes
grew into the body of Triarch, literally, this is no metaphor suctioned to her like snails
no one would ever be able to get close enough to Triarch not even to throw a cock-
tail to drop a bomb imagine the symbiosis
to have kept them out this whole time imagine it, please.
well, while you were imagining, Nepenthes was growing which grew Triarch
first they were both “small” until rabbits shaped hemlock shaped their path
you don’t want to believe animals could share the same dream but they did, they do one path to another
into the chaliced cups of Nepenthes

+

you’re so distracted by all this talk of dreams and rabbits or bodies suspended, vined,
creaming, whatever it is you think you’re reading it’s so easy
you never notice what’s happening in the other mouths do you?

aldrovanda vesiculosa

when Dervish needed to waterwheel, when the threats came along the shorelines
Faa stayed behind in the scent of Triarch, growing her spectrum

Faa smelled testosterone closing in on the forest, which was not a threat as far as threats went
they’d need sight or smell an inch beyond themselves

to uncover Triarch. They were safe, would always be safe, were not threatened, couldn’t be.
can’t you believe in a future when somewhere is protected? place for prismed bodies

children plants wolves not an arc, how boring an arc.
there wasn’t a name yet no time for names. rushing

Dervish was faster than all of us while we were trying not to slip on algae
Dervish was rootless aquatic whorling through the waterways mouth opened

dream

Faa ran so fast she broke through her own frame.
above her, helicopters they wanted what she had in her hands
she was so close, a few more pumps of legs through legs through legs and then she dove
into Triarch it appeared in her path, there was no way around
but through

+

a dream can reel a body for decades can swirl there: brain, gut, heart, under surface
can river like veins can breathe oxygen like heart can go liquid like cunt
she dreamt she woke up and walked barefoot through a cul-de-sac and behind the houses was
a sphere and inside the sphere was an entire forest an entire world, enshrouded, right there
behind the bicycles slicked by rainwater, turned over in the tall summer grass

Melissa Leto, *spiraling story*, digital photograph, 2024. Courtesy of the artist.

dervish; wolf

you wouldn’t believe me. if i’m a woman or a wolf, other.
you wouldn’t believe me. we all touched the same stories.

some of us need that ink to dissolve in water:
lift the story off the page dry it out layer.

you never think of it. it’s obvious. you wouldn’t have.
you haven’t needed to. Faa needed to eat the story.

she hadn’t known Dervish except an echo from a dream
underwater, distant a trickling whisper:

you wouldn’t have heard her. you wouldn’t have needed to.
unless all you had left was listening: Dervish wheeling through

time washing, frothing all around them spinning
until Dervish steadied long enough to focus the seams

whir smoothing into scene: shadowed crescent of a canyon, there
Faa tendrilling rope through her lifelines oh, honey,

if you thought it was Dervish come to teach her—
you aren’t watching the way it slides through her hands.

INT. TRIARCH: NIGHT

the wave of Dervish’s hair in Faa’s hands how sweeping her body
longest brushstroke wingspan and ink of her

starting with a single wrap on her leg, near her hip through her arms Faa loved
the pull of Dervish in her hands over the single stem of her up the knotted vertebrae
over and through
over and through her thigh in Faa’s hands
her knees pressing Dervish down over and through slap of vines against the ground
until the final friction locking her off
line to the moon Faa’s hands, Dervish’s hair double-bight

Faa’s legs Dervish’s center of gravity the scent of them wetting the air
Dervish’s hair, that curtain, that wave holy trees.

prism

you never forget the first time you’re prismed.
the after wave can go years: have you ever felt like that?
like someone’s hand transcended your flesh and reached in for cobalt
butterflies silver threads your long black galaxy speckled braid
taught you to tie the right knots with it how to climb into the sky
like their desires merging with yours unzipped your skin
and you walked clear out never to return to whatever that body was carrying

+

Faa’s body rewired Faa’s mind chasmed
emptying itself of itself pooling memory out
a bloodletting a forgettingremembering a demolishbirth
maybe Dervish could smell it on her
the story of like attracting like was over
the story of moth to flame was over in its place
light to prism, prism to light

Melissa Leto, *into altar,* acrylic and roses on paper, digital photograph, 2024. Courtesy of the artist.

EXT. TRIARCH. BARELY MORNING

low tide. Faa asleep on the last step, waiting
with a bowl of water full of floating petals calendula blue tansy bent heads
of comfrey pulp
of aloe the desire she had to heal Dervish’s wounds
strong as the desire to design them—

not everything is about ropes or prisms.
when someone touches you where the first story spread
sucks it from you like poison
sweet alchemy
what could Faa ever offer?

Dervish up from the water into limbs first step
into Faa’s hands first touch yarrow
marigold rose honey
from the bowl to Faa’s mouth into the altar of Dervish’s body

Melissa Leto makes art near the Salt River on Hohokam land in Arizona. Her/Their work has appeared in Bloody Funny Zine, Shrew Lit Magazine, Tom Maxedon’s Word! podcast, and Write On Downtown. Their wordmaking weaves joy, grief, and trauma while infusing the interconnectedness of alive things on planet earth with queer love in realms of hybridity. They have an MFA from Northern Arizona University, are the lead facilitator for literary arts non-profit Revisionary Arts, and an editor for Rinky Dink Press.