Daisy Bassen
Two is the only number that counts,
You and I, I and thou, the sun and the moon.
The moon and the earth. When you understood,
You learned to lie, you parted all from none, like God
Bringing forth the world. Yes and no,
Two creates less, invokes more, nods
Shrugs. A choice, every choice, prediction,
Regret. Hearts beat lub-dub, breath’s path,
Conception, the syllable in my mouth an umbilicus.
Zero was invented.
Two is the dragon on the map.
The dragon is real.
Her exhalation;
Immolation.
Daisy Bassen is a poet and practicing physician who graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and completed her medical training at The University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has been published in Oberon, McSweeney’s, The Sow’s Ear, and [PANK] as well as multiple other journals. She was a semi-finalist in the 2016 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry and the winner of the So to Speak 2019 Poetry Contest, the 2019 ILDS White Mice Contest, and the 2020 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize. She was doubly nominated for the 2019 Best of the Net Anthology and for a 2019 Pushcart Prize. She’s very interested in craft and form and influenced by writers like Gerard Manley Hopkins, Joy Harjo, Evan Boland and Yusef Komunyakaa. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.
Twitter: @Dgbassen
Facebook: @dgbassenauthor