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New Poetry




From BEAR

by Jennifer Firestone



What was innocuous became ill        the thrill of blue expiring        the clouds interlacing
ghostly        shrouding crowns        a hoot reserves its sound.

She is not at home today not at home today not at home.

Mama shucks nuts        a rock with each quick shuck.
She could grow old        her body colder        difficult to hold
each nut so still        to be an older Mama.


*


She must watch her back.
The two trod gleefully beside.
Her pride loosens        right there        in the middle
mid-way        levitating        a stalking mind.        Perceptions
the heavy din of flies.

They think her scary        amorphous and large
unsure of what species to assign.       No not a tiger, not a bison.
They climb trees and reprieve bad ideas.
Perhaps they should shoot her        or fuck her
perhaps throw down        a viscous pot of honey.
But that’s just tree talk        trees being trees.


*


Swaying        what makes a walk, walk.
The two pawing onwards        limbs bracing.        Mama walks.
To know in excess        blackness heats her brain.
Watching        much different than looking
Different from acknowledging.
The watch        a smack on her back.


*


She is a big brown casualty loping        the slopes are high        forecast says, wondering whose projection this is        the record shuts itself        a cloud wipes away.


*


As if positioned there is only one way        that thinking coheres.
A small bat flutters        upside down        an intellectualism separate
from world-activity.

Her hours occupied with other beings        sometimes a language
isn’t shared        an instinctive track is all that’s revealed.

She puts her brain to the task:
to work against a past        forbear        to understand, dismantle.








Jennifer Firestone is the author of Flashes (Shearsman Books) Holiday (Shearsman Books), Waves (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs), and from Flashes and snapshot (Sona Books). She is the co-editor of Letters To Poets: Conversations about Poetics, Politics and Community (Saturnalia Books), and an Assistant Professor of Literary Studies at Eugene Lang College (The New School). She lives with her family in Brooklyn.





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New Poetry



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Jennifer Firestone


ISSUE:
S U M M E R
2013

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