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The Other Side of White

Paintings by Liz Tran
Poems by Joseph P. Wood

 

 

Arch

Slough the snow-
shoe, the dew-damped
parka, the five last matches,
the kerosene kettle—my head
flips open like it’s attached
with hinges, & out flutters
moths—they all fly where
a branch arcs around itself,
& shaken out from the gray
sky, I fall through the arc’s
space, fracture the snowpack,

 

land the other side of white—
a pond un-frozen, geyser of light
grissailed & hammered, carved
& molded, but it is me breaking
into a neurosis of rainbows,
a clusterfuck of blue yarn,
an epidermis of ruffles
I wear when I burn
my diary.

 


 

***

 

 

Circle

Not perfect the collection of limbs looking forcibly shaped, a crisscross with gaps, sluices where winter sun won’t flare, where nimbus resemble Venn Diagram circles too deflated to intersect, & remember the math class with no books, the teacher without her students, the school bus without the snow tires, the ice, the ice was perfect, like black on a raven, like a missile of bird through slush, like a wisp of death in the graveyard, these were my friends, the souls with no parachute, targets forgoing their red, I won’t smear their blood, I won’t lick their femurs, they were my friends, these collections of limbs, forcibly shaped, circles gapped & broken, & me with my sluices. 

 

 

***

 

 

 

Reach

I should slipknot myself
to a lawn chair, plunk my feet
in a metal washtub of wet cement,
hire the clouds to once again release
the flakes like hounds, wind doing howling
impressions of mob victims, & coerce ghosts
of said victims to thrust me on the frozen pond
& wait. I own seven hundred thousand pages of self-
recrimination, enough to wrap an entire acre of spruce
into surrendering their needles, that’s how boring. Minks
would haul their back broken legs, still in traps, & offer paws
& ask if I need to talk. Not very good listeners, the tortured when
midnight’s not crisp, but utterly pathological. And so are we, my lungs
teletype against my backbone, which I feel through my coat, which wears
another coat, which smells of dead geese, the weak ones’ flying, lowering.

 

 

 


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Liz Tran has been awared residencies from Vermont Studio Center, Millay, Marnay Art Center, among others. Her most recent work will be shown at the Seattle Art Museum Gallery as part of their Summer Introductions Series. www.liztran.com

Joseph P. Wood is the author of one full book of poetry, I & We (CustomWords), and four chapbooks of poems--the most recent, A Severing (Cinematheque Press), is a collaboartion with the painter Salena Gerdes which focuses on found dead insects and birds. His most recent poetry be found in BOMB, Poetry London, Gargoyle, Drunken Boat, Typo, among others.


 

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