ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Chloe N. Clark's work appears such places as Apex, Drunken Boat, Gamut, Hobart, Public Pool, and more. She teaches college composition and communication, writes for Nerds of a Feather and Ploughshares, bakes and tweets about it @PintsNCupcakes.
Other Words for Wanting
I held spring
under my tongue
for a week
kept close as secrets
like your name, like the color
of your eyes when you are not
you in my dreams
Mud grabs my boots,
holding me still
for a second longer
than I'm meant to be kept
like you in the morning, with
one arm across me, pretending
to sleep still as if that alone will hold me
Geese come back and hover
over ice-licked ponds that haven't
yet decided what form they want
to keep — to hold or to give in
like what I've wondered about
when thinking what to tell you —
here I am or you found me or I am yours
Spring comes close enough
for the wind to smell as rich
as earth uncovered and held, I try
to keep it in my lungs
like the idea of you makes me try
sometimes to not smile
when I see you across a room
I keep my face still,
my gaze steady,
until you are close enough
to hold
I wrote this poem during this weird period in the Midwest of false-spring. Every spring I always feel strangely filled with longing — but I'm never sure for exactly what. It's an intense feeling and it always passes after that first edge of spring. But it was very disorienting to feel it in early February and completely out of place with my sense of seasons and time. So, I think that probably is a huge factor for this poem — a longing that's hard to place (and even harder to displace from oneself). I also wrote this poem in a way that always pleases me when I manage it. The first line came to me, very suddenly and forcefully, while I was waiting for the bus. I didn't want to miss my bus and I don't like writing on the bus, so I worked through the poem in my head, repeating it the entire ride home and then wrote it down as soon as I got into the apartment. So the writing of the poem sort of mimicked that feeling — a rush, a sense of needing to get something into words without knowing why.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
