How badly I want to write
you something new
journal,
But all year long it’s been the same
Poems, over and over
The pine branches look like thin ribs again
the spruces in their robes that drape
The pond like hammered silver, again
flinging the light off tiny waves
The hens move in one bob still again
they gather at the fence in trailing shape
And will it always feel like the chilled spring,
when they sent us packing?
As I was driving back on I-95,
the raindrops huge slow and hard,
I did see something new from my car
a black knot of birds exploded
right when one raindrop hit so loud
I thought I could hear the flock breaking apart
/
How badly I want to write
you something true
journal,
But if I didn’t live this out
someone else would —
Just pulling on a loose thread again,
to fray a pattern or fix a stitch
Time feels like a hem, again
and pain is fabric caught in the clip,
sew machine running up seams, again,
bunching them up, hearing them split
Will you always do them like you did me,
setting up for tailored dread?
Well, I saw Bunny in the window
And I tell you I almost called out
lady, wearing his clothes
won’t make you his baby
You must dress yourself, can’t dress no one else,
can’t dress for two, hung up like a coatroom
But I know how it feels to look nice in costume
/
How badly I want to write
you something rude
journal,
But if I start ragging on him
Soft love tut-tuts me
Around and inside me, again
— the stretch of silence, counting penalty
Fastened tight, rocking slight, again
— defer, defer blame, defer decision to infinity
Breath, felt and held, again
— withdrawal, a weapon, and softening, my currency
Will I at least get back my simple heat
now that nobody’s juking me?
Suppose it did come rather easy
to breathe with Cas on a roof on Dwight
swapping selves in broad daylight,
And snowy Noah came soliciting,
readily enough, bold joyful pressing,
Oh, once I’d kissed Kathleen a sec
for days I couldn’t get
her waking up naked out of my head,
Then this dream of you looking seedy
sucking a cigarette, making me queasy
/
How badly I want to write,
you something new
journal,
but I mirror a body
of work been here twenty years
My breasts in ellipse like bells again
ringing when I sit up and settling apart,
arranged on my chest, whole bells again
competing with my shoulders for Most Graceful Rounded Part
My mind is mirror-manifest again
and when I move, it moves, and when I jump, it starts
Will I get by looking like this
won’t I ever have something to make?
Well, I tried whittling in the park
The wood was lightweight from my yard
I cut away a handle of three shapely knots
When I got to the basin of my spoon
the wood revealed its rot, and I
can’t do much but strain soup
Got a nice spoon that can’t serve or scoop.
/
How badly I want to write
you something new
journal
But all year long it’s been the same
Poems, over and over
The pines the pond the farm the hens
The seam the stitch the fraying ends
The breath the dark the mouth the bed
The breast the mind the heart the rest
— Sophie Kyle Collins is a junior in Benjamin Franklin College.
