Three Poems
Jenny Grassl
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twinned
slayer and slain souls forest in all the dressed-to-kill hound-barking up the wrong frill she milk bog child he her blood booted taker rosewood violin song drains sap into its tree her father’s heartbeat slow tow of an acre for himself he knotted to a bough slips taut his dangle circling her empty slipper shame stag beetle chews her name deep and young into oak limb from limb her live buried breath turns its afterleaf gold welded to his hunt he double crossing a river waging above ground she may have died differently her soul still paired with him like the first time she was murdered his table place setting engine die and car door slam smoke smell leather and sweat of wood his chair soaked with sins of the fathers their axes |
"Crouching Nude in Shoes and Black Stockings, Back View" by Egon Schiele, Watercolor, gouache and graphite on paper, 19" × 12", 1912. Open source from The Met.
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in ekphrasis I
— After photographs by Francesca Woodman
who look the lens ago through well worn thrall
with steamer trunk and fur to destinations far
left my own meuse in silver emulsion salt
she a molt afloat changes back into me
God saved the empty skirt the pouch of lint for wings
I take my hands from between my legs though trained
by the smell of leather I fly gloveless into stone
so porous stardust cement the give of graves
and world crack body deep in the friable
palms sink into light-sensitive turn into claws
— After photographs by Francesca Woodman
who look the lens ago through well worn thrall
with steamer trunk and fur to destinations far
left my own meuse in silver emulsion salt
she a molt afloat changes back into me
God saved the empty skirt the pouch of lint for wings
I take my hands from between my legs though trained
by the smell of leather I fly gloveless into stone
so porous stardust cement the give of graves
and world crack body deep in the friable
palms sink into light-sensitive turn into claws
translate us
I swallowed a language whole to meet your gaze
and spoke for days things old and navel to the tongue
your meadowy name of mine I traded American
swoon-whine tipped tulip tree on bedrock shale
we sat high on a pale limestone slope fanned fires
in the gut with Alpine air a glacier-cooled speech forged
to build and turn a Fachwerk phrase toy towns
with Grimm and sauerkraut steam where I longed to find
words for things I could not say or mean mountain river
without a continent whitewater talk sticky ich, du
sumptuous misunderstandings we left the other side
of an echo bell-wrung to need to woo
I swallowed a language whole to meet your gaze
and spoke for days things old and navel to the tongue
your meadowy name of mine I traded American
swoon-whine tipped tulip tree on bedrock shale
we sat high on a pale limestone slope fanned fires
in the gut with Alpine air a glacier-cooled speech forged
to build and turn a Fachwerk phrase toy towns
with Grimm and sauerkraut steam where I longed to find
words for things I could not say or mean mountain river
without a continent whitewater talk sticky ich, du
sumptuous misunderstandings we left the other side
of an echo bell-wrung to need to woo
About the Author
Jenny Grassl was raised in Pennsylvania, and now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her poems appeared inThe Boston Review 2018 annual poetry contest, runner-up prize selected by Mary Jo Bang. In 2019, the anthology Humanagerie, Eibonvale Press, UK, Rhino Poetry, Phantom Drift, Radar Poetry, and The Massachusetts Review published her work. Other journals include Ocean State Review and Rogue Agent. Her poems are forthcoming in: Lily Poetry Review.
About the Work
"Murder, suicide, and love exceed the capacity of ordinary language. In these three poems I have tried to go beyond the narrative, into emotional textures of experience."
Jenny Grassl was raised in Pennsylvania, and now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her poems appeared inThe Boston Review 2018 annual poetry contest, runner-up prize selected by Mary Jo Bang. In 2019, the anthology Humanagerie, Eibonvale Press, UK, Rhino Poetry, Phantom Drift, Radar Poetry, and The Massachusetts Review published her work. Other journals include Ocean State Review and Rogue Agent. Her poems are forthcoming in: Lily Poetry Review.
About the Work
"Murder, suicide, and love exceed the capacity of ordinary language. In these three poems I have tried to go beyond the narrative, into emotional textures of experience."
