Sunday Poem

POPULUS TREMULA 

Broad leaves swing loose, near-unhinged. Noosed
to limbs, swaying gravely without season.
Verging on abscission, oxidizing
copper-tinged, thread-thin necks crane, glint, shift
between whisper and hiss.
Like the shimmer of a sequin-scaled dress, its ombre glitter
is too proud of itself for how common it is. 

Thrusts on edges of thickets down shafts so deep
that stubby-fingered fire can't wring its roots. Sprouts into ashes,
tall as Gloria in excelsis deo, sheds furry grey flowers like post-
apocalyptic summer snow.
Shred into excelsior to bed fragile goods in crates, rescues
oak-casked red wine from centrifuging en route. 

Mortised and tenoned into a rough cross.
Populus tremula, the crux.
It quivers like shot arrows' bow
and shushes its' own secrets for show.

From Ringsend (2012) by Stevie Howell.  

Sunday Poem

NEW YEAR'S DAY

Others speak. They call for time
to come meet them. We do not

speak. We rest. We look
for nothing and do not stretch

to find ourselves different
in the new year. We lie together

under wool blankets, the baby kicks
my back, pads my shoulder

with her fingers, roots for what is hidden
until she cries herself awake.

I lift my shirt, eyes closed, and offer her
my breast and she squirms into me.

My leg moves sideways to find
his warm leg. We three knot ourselves

together in sleep, content in
knowing what we’ll find when we awake.

From Homing Instinct (Frog Hollow Press, 2011) by Shoshanna Wingate

Sea Legend

I'm a little late getting to this, but I want to congratulate Mark Callanan and the increasingly indispensable Frog Hollow Press for their good news: Mark's chapbook Sea Legend has been shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award. The 2,000$ prize will be handed out on June 23rd.

Signal Editions will be publishing Mark's second book next year. Many, if not all, of the poems in the chapbook will be included in the collection. A few copies of Sea Legend, however, are still available. It's a lovely little object and really worth owning.