[WHEN SUNLIGHT BECOMES AN OBJECT]
When sunlight becomes an object, my echo creates a hole in sound:
a thousand doors, many handshakes of air.
Like the snapping hazel flings its yellows into the woods,
my coming and going is marked in the ear of the hearer.
When the hazel dormouse hides, she hides for months at a time.
It’s the grip of an unknown animal she fears.
But fear’s a tricky thing; at night she shreds the honeysuckle
and builds nests in the crooks of open trees.
If the big-eared bat can sing, then I was that supersonic love song.
Swinging from crag to crag, I was that blind crooning animal.
Like Lorca, I want to sleep the dream of apples.
I want the old dangers to feel welcome—
the wind displacing the fir tree, the fir tree catching on fire.
Let something burn long enough, it’ll put itself to sleep.
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JENNIFER MOORE is the author of the forthcoming collection, The Veronica Maneuver (University of Akron Press, August 2015). Her poems have been published in American Letters & Commentary, Best New Poets, The Volta, Columbia Poetry Review and elsewhere, and criticism in Jacket2 and The Offending Adam. She teaches creative writing and literature at Ohio Northern University and lives in Defiance, Ohio.
_______________________________________________________________________
Read more poems by Jennifer Moore:
Poem at Inter/rupture
Poem at Phantom Limb
Poem at TYPO
There is now a wooden seat, where the poet pissed, for the repose of those who wish to enjoy the view—donated, unknowingly, by local dignitaries.
She stands beside the ashes of the woman she was only minutes ago. She bows slightly and thanks everyone for their time.
In this case, it was not the clothes that were made to fit her body but rather her body had to be trimmed and in some cases, cut off to make sure the clothing fit.
Take the bully’s words, the bruises, the broken hearts, the lost fortunes, the lost babies, the grandmothers’ last breaths, the guilt and shame of being touched in the wrong places, the burned houses, the ripped dresses, take it all and set it to the sewer to be treated, to be purified and set free.
who knows maybe we’re all going to make it & pull through & get beyond it all but certainly not without the help of someone else who really & truly gives a shit
Of course it was a little odd to be glad of the bombs that had blown the buildings to bits, to be grateful for the failed bankrupt state that had enabled the holes to remain holes, so lying on the grass of an accidental playground, one just listened to the ping-pong ball batted back and forth across the concrete table.
Petr Borkovec is now a somewhat neglected author, and it is unquestionably true that only a small handful of readers know his work.
They are together, finally, in each other's arms, new lovers joined by the need to be consoled, the need to console.
Outside the classroom, it is winter. /
The trees are spoken in a leaner language, /
and the light is too brittle to resemble /
a green river, a passing train, a boy.
A world much like our own, mistempered & twi-natured, three-fold purgatorial zone /
where Lord Hearsay sits with all his might upon the tallest, narrowest chair, the barstool throne
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Jennifer Moore
Poetry · Tagged: American Letters, american poets, Best New Poets, Columbia Poetry Review, Commentary, contemporary American poetry, Defiance, Jacket2, Jennifer Moore poems, Jennifer Moore poet, Jennifer Moore poetry, Ohio, Ohio Northern University, The Offending Adam, The Veronica Maneuver, The Volta, University of Akron Press, women poets
[WHEN SUNLIGHT BECOMES AN OBJECT]
When sunlight becomes an object, my echo creates a hole in sound:
a thousand doors, many handshakes of air.
Like the snapping hazel flings its yellows into the woods,
my coming and going is marked in the ear of the hearer.
When the hazel dormouse hides, she hides for months at a time.
It’s the grip of an unknown animal she fears.
But fear’s a tricky thing; at night she shreds the honeysuckle
and builds nests in the crooks of open trees.
If the big-eared bat can sing, then I was that supersonic love song.
Swinging from crag to crag, I was that blind crooning animal.
Like Lorca, I want to sleep the dream of apples.
I want the old dangers to feel welcome—
the wind displacing the fir tree, the fir tree catching on fire.
Let something burn long enough, it’ll put itself to sleep.
_______________________________________________________________________
JENNIFER MOORE is the author of the forthcoming collection, The Veronica Maneuver (University of Akron Press, August 2015). Her poems have been published in American Letters & Commentary, Best New Poets, The Volta, Columbia Poetry Review and elsewhere, and criticism in Jacket2 and The Offending Adam. She teaches creative writing and literature at Ohio Northern University and lives in Defiance, Ohio.
_______________________________________________________________________
Read more poems by Jennifer Moore:
Poem at Inter/rupture
Poem at Phantom Limb
Poem at TYPO
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