FIVE POEMS
From Ben Clark and Dana McKenna
At the end of the day you visit me in my nest
When I come to,
I list all the things
I have ruined for you.
Snow, white wine,
watering houseplants,
leaving the house.
You say you never cared
much for any of it.
Your future is lush with lambs
while I stare into the eyes
of a three-headed dog.
I feel it in my wrists again,
and start a list of names
in case I’ll need them. Billie,
for both a girl or cat. Nicknames
for clouds. Old buttermilk sky,
Mare’s tail, Woolpack. Words
that feel pretty. Supine, footpath,
half-moon, noontide. When I ask,
you can’t list a thing, not even
your brother’s middle name.
What else are you unable to list?
I read all living organisms
have the capacity to grow
but wonder if some are
not meant for this earth.
You offer a new list,
late season bloomers.
Toad lily, phlox, goldenrod.
this too shall pass
1
like it or not
the warmth
of your pain
is a part of
my skin
now
walls between us
we listen
for movement
but slow
our breath
uncertain
of who should speak
first or
at all
hours grow
dark hides
of dust
where the curve
of your face
should rest
a handful
of flies drones
instead
you ask for me
to remove you
from the earth
or pull the weeds
that have taken root
to hold you
close or
to leave
while I still can
2
my love the fog
through which
you walk
is not you
or permanent
just a temporary
absence of sight
remember instead
waking
to sweet pure
energy
a rainbow pressed
through the glass
our eager hands
bathed in light
3
you ask me to explain
the space between
hard and soft
but we both know
my tenderness
is not exacting
not a tool capable
of language
or carpentry
more a clumsy
layering
of quilts hand-
sewn by
a grandmother
I miss
sweet certainly
but not
a solution
my soft weight
only useful
burrowed into
offered up
a simple
balm a nest
dismantled
a tender slow
striptease
4
listen under
the mattress
place one stone
tap open night
on the curve
of a spoon
sleep a yolk
to swallow whole
no question
if thoughts close in
like the cyclical
cry of locusts
drown them out
fingertips fluttering
a wooden table
or rest your face
under the soft
hairs of a brush
or stack your spine
fingers clasped
behind your back
repeat the words
and so is
everything else
and so is everything
else and so
is everything else
5
my sweet the relentless
language
of the ghosts
that burden you
and the dark
terrors they ask
you to speak
are no melody
you need welcome
or fear
or feel shame
for repeating
into night’s
opaque shell
instead
eat berries one
by one from
a beautiful blue
ceramic bowl
teach yourself to sing
the alphabet
in a new order
you can rehearse
when you wake
when you wake imagine the sky as you think it should be
I wake to him, but not next to me, remember
we can't help but seek out faces in inanimate objects.
I shift my body limb by limb until I'm
floating again, then another dream of
my mother with red hair. She invites me to enter a contest.
He'll be home Tuesday, his hands, warm smooth field stones.
I wash my face, look up, ask if I'm dreaming.
Flick lights on and off, to be sure.
Check if my bones will
pass through one another.
Follow me to the water,
and we’ll abandon our gravity,
our old unwelcome shapes,
in this moon-pulled remedy.
But you don’t even own a swimsuit,
must use a different set of muscles
to wade through the day.
I think I can save a bad week
by booking an overnight stay
in my own town,
riding the ferris wheel,
sitting alone
in the hotel sauna.
It can’t always be low tide,
though my body, this vessel, seems
more ocean than not, dragged,
not drawn by the moon,
its celestial fingers pressed firmly
into the seabed
of my bones, my blood.
Still, like the owl
I season my tea
with tears.
While the water boils,
I steady one hand at the nape
of my neck,
to hold in the currents.
In today’s meeting, we talk about forgiveness
We sit in a circle, and weave strings around our fingers.
Two women compliment each other’s hair from across the room.
On the way home, there are holes in every fence. I hold my breath.
Smashed fruit flesh sticking to my feet.
My left eye twitches whenever I cross the street.
I notice my reflection, with a hand in one pocket, and think I look cool.
The moment passes quickly. I breathe
early evening hose water, lit coals,
find myself somehow at an evening mass,
place my forehead to the floor, make the sign of the cross.
I imagine a figure wrapped in yarn, head hanging deeply, balanced
on a chair too small.
My mother would tell you I’ve been doing this all along.
These poems were written by Dana McKenna and Ben Clark over a two-week residency at Art Farm Nebraska.
They both live, work, and write in Chicago, Illinois.
© 2018