Poetry by Elsa Valmidiano

Andrew Hart CC




a conjuring

We conjure old lovers 
as if it were a contest 
to feel less worthy 

when we are simply wallowing
in our great constellations
that mapped settled routines 
for years and years 

and we grew into the normalization
of our own discomfort
until it made us wonder 

if we were stepping into another fire 
eking out yet another reluctant Phoenix 
from our own self-immolation. 

We can no longer be swallowed whole. 

An ancestral beast will not allow her descendant 
to throw themselves into the fire. 

The discomfort had gone on too long. 
The change is explosive. 

We, more fragile this time
are the last ones asking 
to be reborn.






tiny chaos

This third place between
waking and dreaming, 
toil and rest

—a third place where 
hands and 
eyes and 
curlicues (like beach strands)
tiptoe between walls

—does it even matter that 
the heart needs 
such inbetweens? 
such fingertips? 
such light through crevices 
              to thrive? 

While the rest 
bury or bleed
in the rubble of 
broken landscapes, 
broken earth, 
broken bodies. 

Can a third place still exist 
to rest ourselves--

within you or 
me or 
home or 
work or 

prayer?

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Elsa Valmidiano is the author of two essay collections, We Are No Longer Babaylan and The Beginning of Leaving. Her work has been widely published and anthologized. Valmidiano was a recent 2025 Writer in Residence at France’s Château d’Orquevaux International Artists and Writers Residency. She believes in ancestral magic, which she usually keeps a secret in “normal” conversation, but can be brazenly found throughout her work. You can find more about her at slicingtomatoes.com. 



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