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.