ABOUT THE FISHMONGER’S WIFE
Careless is a man shucking
brides like bait mussels––
to show such indiscretion,
to fatten so in these times.
Here is the image of a wife
in a thatched smokehouse––
she sleepwalks from fire
to fire, setting start again.
The little oily herring
come wrapped in paper,
whole, of course, or kippered,
or the headless bucklings.
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CARD
Your sunflower vase, a wedding gift,
slipped in my terrible hands.
I wish I weren’t scattered so.
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MIRJAM FROSTH is a Swedish-American poet, photographer, and free climber. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, near a very tall oak tree.
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Photography at The Tall Creative
Afraid / to ask, I wonder if Joko was tested. / I don’t want to put him on the spot / and I know I’d think less of him / if he gave the wrong answer.
slut, thug, doper, bitch, her voice never rising above a whisper. These words may make you uncomfortable.
The woman carrying her life, /
who passed by a moment ago, calls out /
from the next street and someone answers, /
but not to her.
She’s never invited me to one of her parties. / Well, she invited me once. // Once I got there, she never talked to me. /
Never offered me a glass of wine. // Her brain must be a crowded / little place telling her, You’re terrific!
They had more interesting curses than ‘fuck’. /
They loved the views that they made for the future, /
for the people who were lucky enough /
to be born after them.
perjury of lightning bolts: /
a fish spine rises from the trenches of the wound-up day, /
disrupting darkness
At night I become his missing arm. /
The one he lost on the front, looked for /
years later and didn´t find.
Bless the silence. Bless the hiss. Bless the punch. /
Bless the kiss. Bless the lemon. Bless the lime. //
Bless the fishbone in the throat of time.
I went out to my mailbox. /
Everything was addressed to a previous occupant (twice removed) /
who is now, /
according to my neighbors, / deceased.
Love among unequals is not a math problem. /
Is more profane than sacred. It means /
a woman available, without joy.
