ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

Two Poems
by Jessica Dessner


Stick with the Basics

I wanted a storm and there was no storm
Charm was running a little low
so I shook the can, pulled on the tab
Always a little something carried over
detectable from both sides, the small and the grand

The wheels are up, the butter man is coming!
Now they’re relocating the object
I don’t mind the lapses as the universe expands
never bothering us behind the blinds

When the sun rises, every fruited plain has it coming
a grand opening with ribbons, declarations, eventual entanglements
This enclosure may not contain it
Everywhere improvised distress signals
an entire morning of disheveled hair
choppy waters, a weighted thread pulled upstream
a scissors truss missing its central bolt
another paper comb in the eaves

Natural Hazards

Nothing less than a landslide to galvanize wanderlust.
I fear advancing without a flourish of flugelhorns.
This is the place with what’s on the poster.  Isn’t it?
Preeminence releases the brakes.
Those red spots could be roses
I’ll have to form an opinion about later.
Our comrades spread out among the umbriferous trees,
getting sloppy now, singing along
to the chestnuts on the radio.
I can’t carry it much longer.
There’s no handle.
Must lie down, succumb at the foot of the oracle.
I feel the urge to belt it one.
I need you to control me.
Better get started,
for you are usually in the lead
on your thousand legs.

But the flashlight is broken
or on loan to another mystery.
August at the water cooler
and the new conscripts, we think we can see them
or their expressions encrypted in puddles.
They pretend to see us.
Inserting a blue flood plain into the vertical day,
I missed the opening fireworks,
but love the light at work on my sandals,
polished a walnut sherry.

Only you with your fairy ligaments
and your patience
know how to approach patience.

Better to love the boiler plate.
Positively no unauthorized musculature,
kicking off the last rites by merely changing position.