A Poem by Jennifer K. Sweeney

bike shed will often show more results than “bike shed”

Whale song will often be louder than “whale song”

as flower girl runs faster into the field than “flower girl”

and star dust settles more thickly than “star dust.”

Fish stick will often know more of fish than “fish stick”

and beach glass will often know less of the sea than “beach glass.”

Draw fire away from its place, rain from coat, milk from man.

Let light in

that strangeness may be

reassembled by the breath

that a bike be a shelter that a shelter carry us off on slim wheels

that riding is a condition of leaving

that some fearsome thing always comes loose in a circular wind.

Unhemming the couple

one pauses to see the thing in its own delicate spiral,

this cannot be helped.

You with your sturdy distance, I with my mud shoes and water spicket,

how I want to part them now ecstatically the mud and the shoes

the table and the spoon, the air and the port

and zoom down the center aisle with you

shedding ourselves of bikes and stars and plans.

Jennifer K. Sweeney is the author of three poetry collections: Little Spells (New Issues Press, 2015), How to Live on Bread and Music, which received the James Laughlin Award, the Perugia Press Prize and a nomination for the Poets’ Prize, and Salt Memory.

The Poetry Section is edited by Mark Bibbins.