Bat Milk
They do, they do—
inside the living mountain
where night is a constant—
curl up like a god’s
shuttered eye
and wait as I waited
body of my body
we sing the same
blood-warm song.
Casements wrapped in ink
they are to themselves
the center of the earth
by which all things
distinguish
though still they may ask
as I have asked
staring across
the battered plain
what monster what
monster am I?
Midwife of shadow
the first milk breath
hums in the mineral sky.
This selection comes from Foxlogic, Fireweed, available from The Backwaters Press. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Kimberly Ann Priest.
Jennifer K. Sweeney is the author of three other poetry collections, including Little Spells, How to Live on Bread and Music, and Salt Memory. The recipient of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and a Pushcart Prize, she teaches at the University of Redlands in California. Twitter: @jksweeneypoet Kimberly Ann Priest is the author of Slaughter the One Bird (Sundress 2021), Parrot Flower (Glass 2021), Still Life (PANK 2020), and White Goat Black Sheep (Finishing Line Press 2018). Winner of the New American Press 2019 Heartland Poetry Prize, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as North Dakota Quarterly, Salamander, Slipstream, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Borderland and many others. She is an associate poetry editor for the Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry and Embody reader for The Maine Review. Find her work at kimberlyannpriest.com. |
Latest posts by sundresspublications (see all)
- The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Tortillera by Caridad Moro-Gronlier - November 29, 2023
- The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Tortillera by Caridad Moro-Gronlier - November 28, 2023
- The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Tortillera by Caridad Moro-Gronlier - November 27, 2023