Survivor

By JACQUELYN POPE 
Whatever possessed you
pursues me. Whatever
unnerved you sings me
to sleep, repeats and repeats,
insists. Whatever composed
you constricts me. Where
you were bright I was blind.
Whatever you saved
I’ve squandered. Where you
were soft I was scabbed.
Whatever consoled you
confuses me, retreats
and retreats, insists.
Whatever the heart wills,
hands divide. Wherever
the bough breaks, the baby
follows, cradled for a fall.

 

Jacquelyn Pope is the author of Watermark. Hungerpots, her translations of the Dutch poet Hester Knibbe, is forthcoming. She is the recipient of a 2015 NEA Translation Fellowship, a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, and awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

[Purchase your copy of Issue 02 here.]

Survivor

Related Posts

Image of an orange cupped in a hand

May 2023 Poetry Feature: New Poems by Our Contributors

TIMOTHY DONNELLY
Thorn-blossom! Tender thing, prone to solitude / like yours truly, don’t get it twisted if I reach out my hand— / it isn’t to pluck you, who are my beacon down this path, but a gesture / of acknowledgment common among my kind. / When the lukewarm breezes nod off

Red Lanterns in Night Sky

On Wariness

MYRONN HARDY
There is rhythm on the pavement. / There is rhythm in small / apartment rooms. / I’m over slicing tomatoes. / I’m over drinking wine. / I’m performing as not to be / deformed     as not / to show what I shouldn’t. / I don’t want to feel everything.

Image of two blank canvases on a white wall

Nina and Frida Enter the Chat

FELICE BELLE
these biddies with their deadbolt backs/ take naps / while i construct/ canvas from corset cast / art does not wait until you are well / what they did not understand—the training was classical / chopin, motherfuckers/ carry on like she some backwater bluesy / least common denominator