Gnaomi Siemens
Summer 2025 | Poetry
Let the Right One In
A sailor dressed in black, clips in
and climbs out onto the bowsprit.
Supine in the net, sea spray working her
over, a raven crawling with black ants
belching bacteria. The messages still
lost in the prize, girl.
Skin bulbs and polyps fruit along
her body, tiny bindles of swamp
about to pop and sporulate.
Her ship slips feral into the fjord.
The rich envelopes of juice
are about to transform the soil
of the north, just sitting there,
wet and snowless: a human
heart black with old blood, rust
in the wounds from three swords.
The island is an empty room.
The soles of her sea boots
infect it with furniture.
Gnaomi Siemens is a poet and interdisciplinary writer based in New York City who writes about climate change, culture, and art through a queer, ecofeminist lens. Her work can be found in The Believer, Seneca Review, Portland Review, Epiphany Magazine, and Poet Lore, among others in the US and abroad. Her work has been supported by The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), The Arctic Circle, Millay Arts, Vermont Studio Center, The British Library, The Poetry Society of New York, American Literary Translators Association (ALTA), and The Council For European Studies. Her manuscript, The Errant, was a finalist for The X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize.