Buy
A Cartography of Birds
at Amazon.com

In Winter

That the earth is—
we know.

We know too
that hands have shaped us
as water wearing cliffs,
that the moon is rock
hung in the sky,
pitted with craters
larger than anything living.

But that the moon
when seen from distance
is spherical, almost
whole and something to be held—
if not in hands,
then at least
between foreheads.

When will the stars burn?
Or do they burn already,
soundless like women
in flames, too consumed
to cry out?

Windows shot through
in points of fire—
the sky's fingers
through glass, earth
lilted dry
by heat brittle as leaves.

O light unburned
who would save us.

The pigeon murmurs
all afternoon beneath eaves,
still moving at night—
air shot through
with sounds of bells, wings.

Skin tremulous
with the sight of oranges
on atl empty table,
mouth parched
for the taste of citrus.

If I came back
to this table, this bed,
this river—
who would know my fingers?

Would I still read
in face-lines
something of mountains
or palms?

Or would the ceiling
close: lowering clouds? Cherries
blacken and fall to earth
pitted by birds'
shallow beaks?

Leaves carpet
the forest darkly
and we see through a blind
of lower branches,
flung stems
of raspberry plants,
a dead tangle of sumac.

This is land
without pretenses, the backdrop
against which bodies move
like paintings—
not yet drawn out
but with a hint of something
that may be contained,
inhaled—

like dust from the harvest
stirred up in sheets
and dispersed.

Lines to Myself

Girl with the yellow
towel wrapping her hair,
do you not know the flowers
outside your window
are blooming? Do you not see
the house across the street
with blank windows and a single
lamp casting itself into
the late midnight trees? Such a fragile
composition—your bones drawn
together with careful lines
and wrapped in sheets of skin.
Look into the room that wavers
there—on the other side
of the glass. Rest your hands
in the silence of unturned sheets
and use those sheets to wrap
your mourning, the sadnesses
you do not yet know. Remember
that the plum tree was never
so permanent as the oak
still dropping its seeds
into the smooth earth of lawn-slopes.
Know that strangers bring more
than greetings, and wait for
the coins of a new destination.
You, shrouded in white,
are young. Learn the fruits
of this second season
and sprinkle their aroma over
the stones of your walking.

August

Let the poem emerge,
you tell me. Bring it out

as moon draws darkness
under trees, as gaping streetlights

line your eyes
with bands of light.

We are standing on a bridge,
have been standing on the same bridge

since August five years ago
when you said, kiss me so I will

remember. My hands
caught the rail behind

as you pulled—the paint, red,
had blackened by night.

I pressed your hands
as I would two poems,

noted their exact texture
and weight,

the way they found me
rigid. And trembling.

I knew I would remember
a scrape of gravel

like the words I could not say,
the car's taillights

receding into the hot summer
dark. Tonight, you walk

the page with me,
wearing the body

as you would a coat.
I will write it down.

J.L. Conrad's poems have appeare in the Beloit Poetry Journal, H_NGM_N, Folio, ForPoetry.com, and Phoebe.  A native of Ohio, she currently lives in Boston. 

The above poems are taken from Conrad's debut collection, A Cartography of Birds (Louisiana State University Press; November 2002)

Click here to read more poems by J.L. Conrad in ForPoetry.com

ForPoetry