"Instruments of Measurement" by Eva Dominelli

Two poems by ​Nancy Lynée Woo

I'd Rather Be Lightning

                & pole

& tree

                              & roots

seizing upon the closed door

                 & worm

& flood

                               & lab

crackling in violet shudder

                 than tactician inside

measuring the caliber of the blast

for profit or story or

                eyes down, feet

                catching, clinging

to scraps of an old world

                burning, he too unexempt

from the merciless cry

                of a planet clearing

debris, he too in the line

                of fire, pistol wavering

against sunrush, he too

melting, colliding

                into some new use

Approaching Petrichor

Ozone may also be present
                           if there is lightning

              as in, inorganic

ultraviolet

                  electric shield

blasted from
violently opposed clouds

                 and brought up

                                by first rain

                                                 at the end of drought--

Flows root oil
       no longer in duress
                                             after

the pungent blue         —         safe to float

                              rot lifts into the air
              swift strategy of energy
                                            rearranging        like a twitch

                                                            before a hold--

                                                                                          and release

headed out       toward field
              or gull, or sky--

recognition of clay

               burning like wildflowers

                                earth-damp and spreading

                 the message:

​                 the rivers are moving.

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Nancy Lynée Woo is a 2015 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow, a co-founder of the Long Beach Literary Arts Center, and the author of two chapbooks, Bearing the Juice of It All (Finishing Line Press, 2016) and Rampant (Sadie Girl Press, 2014). Find her online at nancylyneewoo.com and patreon.com/fancifulnance. 

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​Eva Dominelli is a Vancouver artist and freelance Illustrator with a BFA in Illustration from Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Her mysterious gouache and ink illustrations playfully investigate the relationship between the private and the public experience of the everyday. She is currently working on her upcoming artist’s book Between Being & Nothingness.

You can view more of her work at evadominelli.com, on facebook @evadominelliillustration or on instagram @eva.avenue.