Emarginate (adj.)
- Emarginate (adj.)
The leaf in the margin of the dictionary is a child'sshaky outline of a leaf,
with a notch at its tip.I close the book. And now I can't think of one other thing in the world
that's emarginate. And when I ask my glow screen it smoothly unscrolls meaning: wings,and photographs of a feather
with jagged edges, then an eagle in air:"Like a boat that floats?" "No," my friend types, "It's more like how spread fingers pull
water as you swim forward": a fish's fin has a notched fan: and now I'm learningsuch a jewel-box of shapes: thank you,
fish-loving indexers of the world:pointed, forked, double-emarginate, truncate, lunate: these fins are drawn
like cycling moons: different-sized scoops of emptiness that propel bodies on:(v.) to take the edge off, to remove
the margin, as, in the glow we seemargins gone: ourselves pinned down to our coordinates: and missiles have such
smooth surfaces: may their flight be slowed by the friction of anything: fish or leaf or bird:by these notches that count, with a blade
what's ours: a day, and a day, and another day. [End Page 124]
Liza Flum grew up in California. She holds an MFA in poetry from Cornell, and her poems appear in journals including Narrative, The Southeast Review, Lambda Literary, H_NGM_N, The Collagist, and PRISM international. Her work has recently been supported by fellowships from the Saltonstall Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Yiddish Book Center. She is currently a PhD student in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah, and she works as a poetry editor for Omnidawn.
