FANZINE

NATURE POEM

 

Yesterday it was marsh marigolds

by the river with my mother

and in the afternoon forsythia

with Chris

                  (he dislikes it)

and today it is grass again

with ants departing

                                 or heading

towards each other to exchange

whatever message

                                 Church bells

are literally ringing and then

oh my god the train

                                  and jesus christ a butterfly

lovely brown with off-white tips

and every now and then irregular

lavender spots

                         It’s not necessary

to write everything down

 

When a creature quietly tends

to itself

              I am happy

and by extension earlier I thought

for actually a very long time

about ants and the impossibility

of ant masturbation

 

They do not love themselves enough

They only love each other

 

 

OPTIONED

 

Of my days I’m director

not author

                  and neither of us has

any money

 

I was born with a wooden spoon

in my ass

                  Imagine my embarrassment!

Then go ahead and imagine your own

 

What does a house do?

                                         That’s easy

It houses

                 just as a cloud

pulls the light from a face

when someone utters mortgage

 

In any other world

                                  a sweet name

for a daughter

                          beginning as it does

with a little death

 

 

AESTHETICS OF CRYING

 

You meet someone and later you meet

their dancing

                         and you have to start again

You like cat one

                           and you like cat two

and they do terrible things to each other

 

Once to celebrate a bad mood

we broke all the clean dishes

 

There are pictures

                              I’d like a portrait

of an angry horse with his beauty

and his fuming

                          It’s hard to know

what you look like when you’re mad

 

Crying’s easier

                          I have cried at times

for so long that I have moved the activity

in front of the mirror

                                  out of curiosity

The information I gathered there remains

thus far unused

                          but let the record show

my horrible face

——————–

Heather Christle is the author of three poetry collections, most recently What Is Amazing. She lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where she is working on a book about crying.

 

Fanzine’s series editor for Fall 2013 is Ella Longpre.