The Metempirics of You and Me

Metempirics: study of concepts and relationships conceived  

as beyond and yet related to knowledge gained empirically. 

A concept barely construed–– 

conjugation of roses 

essence redolent as champac 

the fragrance sacred to Vishnu 

protector of the world 

A being like you  

awash in my consciousness so long 

then flesh and bone of presence 

enigmatic florescence of conflux 

out of angle, stance, sound, and movement  

We crush 

to that essence 

so many bruised petals 

from an urgency sprung from strata 

bedrock built for years 

Like ooze of oil the novel flow 

of self out of self into other 

returning to self–– 

a conjugation related to 

and yet beyond 

our separate understandings 

of self and other 

Breathing into each other 

we know intuitively to protect  

our nighttime world  

of roses    We murmur 

our mysterious incantations 

---

Jacquelyn Shah is an iconoclastic pacifist. Obsessive, she has written 563 centos (form dating back to Homer & Virgil) using lines from 4,494 different poets (20 have been published). Publications include: poetry chapbook, small fry; full-length poetry book, What to Do with Red; poems in journals; hybrid memoir Limited Engagement: A Way of Living (2023 contest winner). She was awarded Third Special Merit in the 2023 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest and was nominated by Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor for a Pushcart Prize in 2023. Her education: A.B. (Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude), Rutgers U; M.A. English, Drew U; M.F.A. & Ph.D. English literature/creative writing–poetry, U of Houston. One love-of-her-life is Zadie Quinn Atwood, a super beautiful, smart calico cat.