ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Caroline Chavatel is a M.F.A. candidate at New Mexico State University where she is Poetry Editor of Puerto del Sol. Her work has appeared in AGNI Online, Gulf Coast, Sonora Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Nimrod, and Epoch, among others. She has won or placed in prizes from The Cossack Review, phoebe, and Gigantic Sequins and has been nominated for 2018 Best New Poets. She currently lives in Las Cruces, NM where she is co-founder of Madhouse Press.
Makeshift Animal
i.
I’ve always loved
in my mouth. Topaz, too — always
loved being set loose from words
that vanish like false teeth.
Always loved dawn’s slow seep
like an apology that can’t be held
any longer. The morning has duct tape over its mouth.
The morning is begging to be free from its iron cage.
That morning
we were modern,
not bruised. And do you remember
that morning, before the emptying flutes,
the doves shat all over the porch, their waste
like snow covering each square foot? Remember
the morning we woke up having not really
slept, so now I suppose it’s wrong to say
we ever woke at all?
It was crying for its mother. Morning.
If morning is the utterance,
I want to call it subterfuge.
And do you remember the almost-
bite? The almost — and your eyes
shined like topaz in the sheets.
ii. Sweet
animal — every bit everything.
And do you
remember the morning it rained straight
into my coffee? You said every cup
exists to be filled and then emptied
or maybe
you said nothing
at all.
iii.
Morning, who made you?
And when I do not sleep I do not
dream. I am the doves
covering the porch except my body
is the waste, skin spread
and cut like wrapping
paper.
What is it to be fed?
iv.
I’ve always loved
metallic in my mouth — pennies
turning my tongue
to currency. O, Alchemy. Let it bleed
when bit. That’s what
they said for the hit dog
on the side of the road: let it
bleed. Let it.
v.
Do you remember the Sunday I was
born, mother? Do you
remember the daughter, the animal
birthed from you? Fragile peach
for head and wild
for heart. Have you remembered?
To keep her away
from the wolves —
their gemstone teeth.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
