Jennifer Reeser

Blue-Crested Cry

We’re through, we’re through, we’re through, we’re through, we’re through And – flanking, now, the edges of our schism – It seems your coldness and my idealism Alone for all this time have kept

Moscow ballet at seven in the evening. You look at everything. You lay your cheek Against my shoulder, smoothing down my sleeve, The Russian blizzards somehow less than bleak, Portrayed with whimsy on the

French Quarter Singer

Strumming your polished guitar with long, nail-lightened fingers, Where are you now, leaning forward a peasant-dressed arm – Lark on the near side of midnight, my crescent curb lady, Ear to your sound, dangling

Renunciation

ItвЂ™s a jade branch on the floor, broken in two, love, Or a stain raised on the lapped grains of a suede glove. ItвЂ™s the lace, blown by a strong breeze, of an old

Sapphics For Celebrity

In my dream, Celebrity, four pianos Scored the room, and you on an antique sofa Near two dark-haired innocents asked that I play Something immortal. Dust motes grayed the air, and a sage-green shadow

Elizabeth Leaves A Letter For Dr. Frankenstein

Whether the clouds had abandoned Geneva that evening No one can say now, but what I remember are roses Bruised at their edges, and china cups yellowed with age. “I am too sick of

Good Friday 2001, Riding North

Yellow makes a play for green among The rows of some poor farmer’s field outside The Memphis city limits’ northern edge. A D. J. plays The Day He Wore My Crown, Not knowing it

Imagining you'd come to say goodbye

Imagining you’d come to say goodbye, I made a doll of raffia and string. I gave her thatch hair, and a broomstick skirt Of patchwork satin rags. Around each eye I stitched thick lashes.

The Neighborhood

I wish I could, like some, forget, And never anguish, nor regret, Dismissive, free to roam the street, No matter how The visions meet. Remembrance is a neighborhood Where convicts live with great and

Should You Ask At Midnight

What would I do without your voice to wake me? Cor ad cor loquitur, I’m loath to know. Kitsch operas sound, unhesitant to shake me, The sheers undrawn, the heavens hardly showing, My camisole

Compass Rose

I’d buy you a Babushka doll, my heart, And brush your ash-blonde hair until it gleams, Were Russia and our land not laid apart By ocean so much deeper than it seems. I have

This Night Slip, In His Honor (after Komachi)

This night slip, in his honor Flipped inside out – of lace- Edged netting – is the color Of Shaka Zulu’s face; Of panther flower at midnight Where crow and boa doze; Of vertigo

Civilization

Send your army home to their wives and children. It is late. Your soldiers are burdened, thirsty. Lock the doors, the windows, and here in darkness lie down beside me. Speak of anything we

By This Pitch And Motion

In the upstairs hallway, complacent sunlight Stings the walls with gold and translucent almond Over Turkish runners betraying patterns Faded with travel. At their raveled edges, my daughter slumbers In the room from which

Miscarriage

Fold this, our daughter’s grave, And seal it with your kiss. For all the love I gave, You owe me this. Inside of me, she had Your lips and tongue, my air Of grimness,

Leaning Over Eros

She recognizes him at last as Other, Not Self. I see her in my mind, hot wax About to plummet from the lifted candle. Should closeness be so vulnerable to fact? The wrinkles in