11.3 (Spring 2007)   The 2River View  

Jennifer JuneauListen

 

The Light Of The Mind, Cold And Planetary

Relinquish a vision?
Wanderlust for word, my task Sisyphean?

Wastrel, you said. I flaw and I flaw,
Plummet with the plums.

Fallen fruit from the sage tree of the mind.
Accent, false tense. Dear versicolored friend,

You are mighty in mozzle,
A turncoat in wanion.

Fade and falter, waver and waive
The right to tread hyperopic implosion,

Jam of grass. Fair-weather, seasonable thing.
It was only when I died you were pricked

By my invaluable sting.

 

This House

This house, which I built entirely out of glass,
Is lined with many stones.
When you live inside a glass house
No doubt you become it.

Appearances can be deceiving
To those on the outside peering in
Eliciting no end to the public parade of deductions
Knotting the street in one nosy rabble.

All it takes is for one upstart skeleton
To emerge from closet to page
For the hungry to materialize in droves.
What panic out there past midnight

Dares to transcribe the muscle of a shift?
The garden gate groans under a deaf moon.
A target of worms and a swift narrative are what I'm after,
But I survive on the love of constellations.

Night warms me, has kept me lithe.
I feed the fire of my watchers
From the hybrid pot of peevish & honey;
Their appetites smooth-faced in the mirrored air.

 

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