Upon at Bride Chamber: may eve epithalamium
a body embodies
the canticle of thighs
they wanted a song with ache
this extra force
this extra forest
o their future
wife beautiful open space
for instance, the irises, like that
as though the lawn had been watered
she’s unmistakably summer
or mown, shorn smell over the next green
hill, shore, two strawberries are no longer hiding
emerge from beneath leaves well below eye level
green enthusiasm, white and romantic
am I still I am red towards the end
opening up, mossed and cloven
white falls immediately between
soft and old shapes
stained and welded
gripping the ancient standards, goat god
preventing them from splitting
purple, their name is mercy
on the face of the falls grow ferns
one of the venus places
they come here to purify
they come to wed
it is written in a plain-covered
pale green book in pencil
not a venus exactly
something softer and darker
a little thicker, more carbon
dark matter from stars
everything improvised
the looseness of letters
not formed yet in words
influence floating
forming an oval
moves in a whirlpool
make no attempt to move
float elliptically round and
round a yantra in fluid pooling
the sensation, sitting in circles
sending a message silently
please respond (in kind)
kindly transcribe my mental message
please respond aloud (I love you)
we wrap ourselves in paisley
green eyes of the paisley
like cats collecting everywhere
chance correspondences
collecting beauties and
cracking them open
floral offerings several times daily
scattering, gathering
circled with a loose circle
curving, head to breast
love is the realest frame
an opening in it
the body the painting
through love thrust forward
(I don’t want to mislead you––
it’s not all the missing matter known vocally
“Here the ladies that ben with oute
shall synge this A”)
these are penetrating terms
the leaning in space, the letting
the liminal, the lustral
illuminating passion
it’s going to depend on
something (on love) (beloved)
there is no end to that story
as a means of adornment
Dale Going's third poetry collection, the recently published "The Beautiful Language of Our Disaster," (June 2025) was awarded the Codhill Press Guest Editor Selection. A chapbook, "For the Anniversaries of All Loving Kinds of Meetings," was published in June 2025 by poet Brian Teare’s artisanal micropress, Albion Books. Her previous collections are "The View They Arrange" (Kelsey St. Press, nominated for the Poets' Prize) and "As/of the Whole" (San Francisco State University Award, selected by Brenda Hillman). “Sonnets of Succor and Sorrow,” an ekphrastic manuscript of her collaboration with collage artist Marie Carbone, was a finalist for Fence Books’ 2025 Ottoline Prize. The Fund for Poetry, California Arts Council, and Residency Fellowships at Yaddo, Watermill Center, Wedding Cake House, and Djerassi have supported her work. In the past three years over 95 of her poems have appeared in more than 50 journals, including VOLT, Annulet, Fence, Either/Or, The Banyan Review, Mantis, Blood, Orange Review, BlazeVOX, Interim, New American Writing, Posit, Nelligan Review,and others. Her Em Press letterpress editions of poetry by women are archived internationally in prominent library special collections. She co-founded the quarterly ROOMS, which for a decade published formally innovative work of women writers and artists. She has taught book arts at the San Francisco Center for the Book, served as letterpress TA for CODEX founder Peter Rutledge Koch, hosted a poetry radio program, written and performed in poets' theater and had twice served on Yaddo's Literature Panel. Born in Troy, NY and educated at Manhattanville College (B.A., English) and San Francisco State University (M.A. English, Creative Writing). Dale married the love of her life, and lived in New York City, after a previous lifetime in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dale Going died on March 31, 2026. Shine brightly. https://linktr.ee/dalegoing