National Poetry Month : em kneifel,

 

 

for peter

given the air, everything blue, i remembered a future. i swollened. she said do you remember that word, ruddy? she was wearing her warm mother’s jacket. she said to me, naming is practical. by that time she was still wearing it. she laughed when i called the clouds herculean. when i said i knew someone once, wallace, except it began with an f. because how could i tell her that i am called knuckle on wood, cluck of a swinging. everywhere pattern, if tight. how, after the long hours of the fogging morning, i’d found it, the fountain, gargled by rocks in the moon sand. when we turned for the pink, i knew i’d learned nothing. no one had ever had her face. i was still wanting for sound.

 

 

 

em kneifel, ed at the puritan, friend of a friend, in bed with their palms up. @emiliekneifel