The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: & watch how easily the jaw sings of god by Ashley Cline

This selection, chosen by Guest Curator H.V. Cramond, is from & watch how easily the jaw sings of god by Ashley Cline, released by Glass Poetry Press in 2021.

the things we borrow
(excerpt)

“So you just stepped out / Of the front of my house / And I’ll never see you again / I closed my eyes for a second / And when they opened / You weren’t there”
— Frightened Rabbit, Floating in the Forth

“I have fallen in the forest / Did you hear me?”
— Frightened Rabbit, The Loneliness and the Scream

iii.

you built a house in a field far from the cliffs,
but close to the river—

you collected the rain in barrels you placed beside the porch,
and tipped your lips to their open oak mouths on occasion. you asked
them from what rivers they came, or from which oceans they hailed.
you asked them whose lungs they filled and emptied of air, as you

dropped whole lemons and limes and apricots and peaches inside the
fresh water of their answers. you whispered poems to the fruit, as you
raised your brush to the barrels’ oak lips and dipped it beneath their
saltwater confessions—gentle like a sail boat caught in a bottle,

you painted the house dandelion yellow, and the shutters and door
in a mint julep green. you didn’t care what the neighbors thought,
you wanted to live inside of spring. you wanted to call a season of
permanent blooming home and you didn’t want your
growth to be mistaken for metaphor.

An avid introvert, full-time carbon-based life-form and aspiring himbo, Ashley Cline‘s poetry has appeared in 404 Ink, Okay Donkey, Wrongdoing Magazine, and HAD—among others. A Pushcart nominee and Best of the Net 2020 finalist, her debut chapbook & watch how easily the jaw sings of god is available now (Glass Poetry Press), while should the earth reclaim you (Bone & Ink Press) and cowabungaly yours at the end of the world (Gutslut Press) are forthcoming. Once, in the summer of 2019, she crowd-surfed an inflatable sword to Carly Rae Jepsen, and her best at all-you-can-eat sushi is 5 rolls in 11 minutes.

H.V. Cramond holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was the founding Poetry Editor of Requited Journal for 10 years. In 2018, she helped pass the Survivor’s Bill of Rights as the Illinois organizer for Rise. Recent work can be found in Soundless Poetry, Ignavia, death hums, Crack the Spine, BlazeVOX, Menacing Hedge, Adanna, So to Speak, Thank You for Swallowing, Dusie, Masque & Spectacle, Matter, and at https://hvcramond.com