One Moment Please
A heart sits by a window listening for a silence
it can never hear. Who wouldn’t get tired of all
that beating? Give me a moment please. But that’s
like asking leaves to stop breaking into the soil
that grew the tree that grew the leaves. The sun
like Zeno’s arrow does not pause. So the river
after storm beats its way back to shore heavy
with silt, refuse refusing to die. You can hear it
pumping as it surges into fields rimmed with phoebes
repeating fee bee bee bee. Mouth a tangerine.
Overhead an electric buzz too high to see.
And behind my knee a mosquito, sister to the one
at my ear, with the same choir director: encore,
higher pitch please. They tunnel into soft spots
and drink and drink. The same blood that can’t
quiet itself as if recording every tremor, every shift.
A heart sits by a window listening for a silence
it can never hear. Who wouldn’t get tired of all
that beating? Give me a moment please. But that’s
like asking leaves to stop breaking into the soil
that grew the tree that grew the leaves. The sun
like Zeno’s arrow does not pause. So the river
after storm beats its way back to shore heavy
with silt, refuse refusing to die. You can hear it
pumping as it surges into fields rimmed with phoebes
repeating fee bee bee bee. Mouth a tangerine.
Overhead an electric buzz too high to see.
And behind my knee a mosquito, sister to the one
at my ear, with the same choir director: encore,
higher pitch please. They tunnel into soft spots
and drink and drink. The same blood that can’t
quiet itself as if recording every tremor, every shift.
No Mean
You search for standard deviations even when
there is no mean. Where on this graph do I belong?
Half the world outside looking in, half inside looking out.
And in between a pane, tempered, perhaps a screen.
It’s academic. An epidemic. Epidermic. A bruise
on your shin. Your outer integument enfolding.
Leave that turtle where it is. It knows how to be a turtle
better than anyone, digging for just the right sand.
A crowd of one. Searching. Measuring. A place to be.
The designated denizen. A seesaw balancing itself in rain.
A glimpse of pond glimpses more than the whole pond,
framed in beech, in great blue heron, the water in its wings.
When the bear crosses your path into the high tension
wires the high tension is not just in the wires. Temperatures
rising. Breaths disappear. You perceive your perception is off.
How separate separate can feel. A hundred sprouts of locust
push through the mother stump. You are covered in trees.
Those who join you join you. Eagles as common as gulls.
There is no death here, just a long dwindling curve.
You look for what you look for. One embarks then embarks
again. Clearing land then clearing out when it becomes clear
there is no clear path ahead. Still you plot each point
because the current keeps moving even though your life hangs
in the air like a kingfisher beating both wings to keep still.
You search for standard deviations even when
there is no mean. Where on this graph do I belong?
Half the world outside looking in, half inside looking out.
And in between a pane, tempered, perhaps a screen.
It’s academic. An epidemic. Epidermic. A bruise
on your shin. Your outer integument enfolding.
Leave that turtle where it is. It knows how to be a turtle
better than anyone, digging for just the right sand.
A crowd of one. Searching. Measuring. A place to be.
The designated denizen. A seesaw balancing itself in rain.
A glimpse of pond glimpses more than the whole pond,
framed in beech, in great blue heron, the water in its wings.
When the bear crosses your path into the high tension
wires the high tension is not just in the wires. Temperatures
rising. Breaths disappear. You perceive your perception is off.
How separate separate can feel. A hundred sprouts of locust
push through the mother stump. You are covered in trees.
Those who join you join you. Eagles as common as gulls.
There is no death here, just a long dwindling curve.
You look for what you look for. One embarks then embarks
again. Clearing land then clearing out when it becomes clear
there is no clear path ahead. Still you plot each point
because the current keeps moving even though your life hangs
in the air like a kingfisher beating both wings to keep still.
The Shape Of The Jar
For early colonists early mornings, early nights.
So many trees. So many needs. The need to plant
no different from the need to see. Fell, saw, dry, burn.
Removing trees to remove themselves, some higher
ground. Or so they say. The past not as solid as the people
who lived it, who left this barbed wire behind.
It’s a fluid we pour, stories based on their stories
that keep changing; it depends on the shape of the jar.
The old body growing over the young, bark breaking;
the young breaking free. Why does the wind always push
its best ideas ahead? Open the window, open the past
just a crack, sap seeping, your tongue on the seam.
Crows are happy to tell you the time is now now now.
But keep sawing. Soon the world will forget you, unless
it forgets to forget you. Then whose past will you become?
For early colonists early mornings, early nights.
So many trees. So many needs. The need to plant
no different from the need to see. Fell, saw, dry, burn.
Removing trees to remove themselves, some higher
ground. Or so they say. The past not as solid as the people
who lived it, who left this barbed wire behind.
It’s a fluid we pour, stories based on their stories
that keep changing; it depends on the shape of the jar.
The old body growing over the young, bark breaking;
the young breaking free. Why does the wind always push
its best ideas ahead? Open the window, open the past
just a crack, sap seeping, your tongue on the seam.
Crows are happy to tell you the time is now now now.
But keep sawing. Soon the world will forget you, unless
it forgets to forget you. Then whose past will you become?
Susan Johnson has her MFA and PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she teaches writing in the Isenberg School of Management. Her poems have recently appeared in Rhino, Comstock Review, Oyez Review, Pinyon, THEODATE, Bluestem, and Karamu. Her chapbook “Impossible is Nothing” was published from Finishing Line Press.