Jennifer Pilch
from Sequoia Graffiti
(1)
To take relief in the pictorial was my only crime
not peaks and valleys but a carpet grown vertical
When does the dogwood bloom?
The obscuration my waiting
one thread out from fire fingered the wall
When does the dogwood bloom?
Things I thought I saw (driving at):
dead deer headless raven bleached owl
black pig pick axe panther rib cage
When does the dogwood bloom?
aperture an ensuing clockâs division
missive forest, serial decay
compiled as lichen on that wall
When does the dogwood bloom?
the fire almost done, breaking on cockled yarn
I snap wildly, retreat
(9)
A black swift sutures the valley oil between jags
a mule deer licks dark streaks from his face
lupine yolk her shoulders
streaks! sutures! streaks! sutures!
the morningâs increasingly heated ritual
connects, moves, and damaged, it mends
no, the tear was a campfire
where flames showed our faces
the mule deer cut at the joints
one hoof vertical catches sun
the reflection binding/blinding
a timeline flash in table lake
Jennifer Pilch is the author of three chapbooks: Profil Perdu (Greying Ghost Press), Mother Color (Konundrum Engine Editions), and Bulb-Setting (Dancing Girl Press). Her poems have appeared in such literary journals as American Letters and Commentary, Denver Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Fence, Harp and Altar, The Iowa Review, and New American Writing. She is editor of the upcoming journal La Vague.