We are exacting like furs
are exacting, we are narcoleptic
like furs are narcoleptic, we are dead
language like furs
are dead language, we are black
holes, we are still full
of blood, we line
the wood’s edge, we hold
the shape of the edge
of the woods, we remember what
seasonal flooding smells
like on the third and fourth
day, along the vertebrae we
turn into hard timber
sound that carries inside out
40 of it, unexpected rings. We are a trapper
arm full thrown
in a hole, use pronouns this way
to aerate the residence. Hollow where
the body has rested is full of false
dragon head (the obedient
plant) and slender-stalked
guara. Braided from the back we’re still
attentive and rising, vestigial
partners, ba-bum-ba-bum goes the birdsfoot
violet when we grow too close
to the highway. A half-inch further
and we would have been decoy instead
of demonstration. We feel our modes
of transportation migrating deep
into the offal thicket and we know
exactly how we’ll be covered come
winter.
This selection comes from Jen Tynes’ poetry collection Trick Rider, available now from Trembling Pillow Press. Purchase your copy here.
Jen Tynes is the founding editor of Horse Less Press. She is the
author of four full-length books of poetry–Hunter Monies (Black
Radish Books), Trick Rider (Trembling Pillow Press), Heron/Girlfriend
(Coconut Books), and The End Of Rude Handles (Red Morning Press), and
the author or co-author of eight chapbooks. She teaches writing and
lives in Grand Rapids.
Jane Huffman is a current MFA candidate in Poetry at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a staff eDior for Sundress Publications. Her poetry is featured or forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Moon City Review, Radar Poetry, PHANTOM, Word Riot, The This Magazine, RHINO Poetry, and elsewhere in print and online. She lives in Iowa City, where she teaches literature in the University of Iowa English Department and serves on the poetry staff of The Iowa Review.
