Poems
by Kitty Jospé
Stories in Shadows
You could say the shadow, sliding off
the two peaked ears of wind-bitten bluffs,
creates a wolf-head—
suggests fractions involved with wearing—
pelt of rain above, assault of waves below, uprooting
the overstory close to the edge of the bluffs—
and hear a long howl of what was,
a hint of what can haunt us—
then it is easy to add a chapter about that tree branch
brandishing its clout like a megaphone.
But what happens when those spires of ancient chimneys
are leveled, no mandible visible?
Looking through Woods, Hourglass Shapes
Tomorrow’s unreadable
as this shining acreage;
the future’s nothing
but this moment’s gleaming rim.
—Mark Doty, from “Atlantis”
I look at the V of sky, above—
lacy leaf of ash fronds
in the spill of it—
pressing into
the blue,
and below
a golden oval of hay framed
by cedars to make a perfect hourglass
as if holding the intimacy of discrete moments—
I hadn’t noticed the shape until now, with everyone gone.
In the foreground I still hear our laughing,
croquet and silliness coloring
the who of us—
over
the years
as insistent as
the Northern White-Throat
who continues to whistle sam peabody peabody—
that song of forever that feeds us even as time runs out.
You Were Never Really Here
[after Jeff Suszczynski]
Call the funnel of smoke, you—
it brings in what you were
sucks out what never
was really
here…
The woman is like the outline of the moon soon to be here
wrapped in a fashionable robe—really
you might say, only a trick, never
more than faceless. If appearances were
defined by a dress called you—
does that change you were never really here—
that funnel of gray attaching you
to some greater grayness— here?
really never were you
belonging.
Kitty Jospé loves facilitating poetry appreciation and collaborations with word, art and music. After years of teaching French, she turned to English, and received her MFA in creative writing in 2009.
RUNDELANIA 