Emily Carr
She puts her wedding ring in a Bandaid box, her sundress flowers
sideways.
(Underbelly; a perfect ankle, her body’s papery brown bud.)
A telephone pole gets repeated, & is music. (This isnt what I was
asking for this isnt, what I was asking for).
Your hunger breaks. (Zero at the bone.) Here Lord you pray
here—.
Buckshot, rose.
All distance, all breath: lions, loaves & fish, unicorns fill the room.
Inside that startled space, your hands like hot violets. Jesus she
cries.
How does a body do when burning. O Lord in your holy blank—.
Wait. Sip.
I tell you love neither begins nor ends; it only pretends to do so.
Cut the horizon’s tether. Face her
Emily Carr has published two books of poetry: directions for flying (Furniture Press 2010) and 13 Ways of Happily: Books 1 & 2 (Parlor Press 2011), the latter of which was chosen by Cole Swensen as the winner of the 2009 New Measures Prize. Excerpts from The Weights of Heaven, Emily’s autobiography-in-progress, were published in the Summer 2011 Adaptations Issue of The Western Humanities Review. For a video performance of excerpts from Name Your Bird Without a Gun, visit www.ifshedrawsadoor.com.
“‘nock end (n.)’: maybe the man driving, / smoking & singing / maybe the woman / on the edge of the porch / steeled / fleeing”