Before Combustion
we had to put our bodies
on the bodies
of these horses
who’d just as soon
untie themselves
wonder about
the first time
it must have been a man
who tried this, who thought
I can ride this
I heard Russian spoken aloud
my lover on the phone
all that language
bucking up & kicking
at the front
of his mouth, pulled back
to the deep groan
of his throat
& still I
balancing, bracing
a tongue of stone
Holiday Newsletter
& I have worn my hair blue
& short & red sometimes.
sewn five or so party dresses, one
to be worn with dollar-store, clip-on
poinsettias in silver and gold, shedding
glitter. & for myself an electric kettle.
& for myself, clover seed in the yard
before the frost. & for myself
an orange car when the green
one had rolled her last. & I asked
for a raise & I asked for a CT scan.
for both, I prayed. & the child to school
I sent (wish I hadn’t, and wished
I’d earlier). O Angel-Manger-
Morningstar! Brought in
the rosemary bush, gathered
its bows in bands & upstrung it
with lights & with books
surrounded it. Forestalled somehow
talks of conception, immaculate
& otherwise. Cleaned cat pee
from sheets & blankets & an old
couch I gave up on & hauled
out, bad shoulder aching, only to find it
gone before the pickup. & returning
to you: ink, pen, this bit of me.
“angle, manger, star” is a line found in Ted Kooser’s “Christmas Mail”
Bedtime
O you, the parental
breach, you who have become mild
in all things but this — pray, howl
to the sun in its western altar:
may you set, may you set —
O what small beast it is
you bore & now wrangle through
the lycanthropy of childhood —
what beast you feed
from skin and bone, your soul
at nightfall, before she yields
to the closet light, that placebo moon
calling her to a wild wakefulness
that cliffs her body against
your sleep — O pace that quiet house,
waiting, waiting —
and believe your child‘s face
will remember its infant lines,
your fingertips, your kisses.
Sherre Vernon (she/her/hers) is the author of two award-winning chapbooks: Green Ink Wings and The Name is Perilous. Vernon has been published in journals such as TAB and The Chestnut Review, nominated for Best of the Net, and anthologized in several collections including Fat & Queer and Best Small Fictions. Flame Nebula, Bright Nova, her full-length poetry collection, is available at www.mainstreetragbookstore.com. To read more, visit http://www.sherrevernon.com and tag Sherre into conversation @sherrevernon.
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