Melissa Severin
3 poems
**
Without Frames
What’s left north
What’s defined by another body
sovereign nation with borders shifting
back to a spine the same length
the persistence of a photograph
in more than one language
her eye tells me so
how clouds crowd three months of moons
the accomplishment of belief
What’s not hanging on walls,
What’s never and always there
careful not to walk on certain salts
step aside, the floorboards used to one weight,
pressure from only one direction, words
from one voice the sea
in the background how she photographs herself
how I won’t stop looking,
a ring identical to the silver in my mouth
What is a way to look at this that doesn’t ask
for a way to be still
Here now
the whiteness of walls
in the bottoms I fall to
eyes are corners
while her name isn’t spoken
still here now she’s
hanging on the wall
**
Or a Kiss on the Teeth
In the fashion
..........of the time,
..........I put my forehead to the floor.
.......... Ever since,
birds perch at points
.......... on the spine,
..........spots stuffed with summer
..........and gravel roads.
..........legs are bruises,
..........skin is one
thousand scorpions open to suggestion.
..........Sting ray and scuttle fish limbs
..........have simple whims, hands
..........split hairs, whittle nocturnes
..........from the undercurrent.
.......... Look! Like thunder
or a kiss on the teeth!
..........When we next meet
..........I’ll be mute, relieved,
..........unseen, an ocean between reach,
never and always waist deep.
**
Farside
A man says monuments are holograms,
..........pointillist,
projections viewed from lawn chairs;
..........Adirondacks that keep backs straight
while slouching. Palms,
..........mended and tempted,
trace circles in the grass,
..........shadow blades with bronzed pins.
..........If tornado-green sky,
..........if smelling atmosphere,
..........the oxidation in real time,
summer meteors radio for sleep.
..........Synapses and silence
consistent with lips, stiff as lips—
..........wash on the line,
drip dry—that’s axis and tilt. An arm
..........held, arc of string,
between latitudes, circles;
..........parallels of time
missed assumed bruiseless
..........waiting. Numb side,
..........spheres far off
..........or full view
..........sit mute,
..........domestic and insatiable.
**
return to sawbuck 2.4
**
Melissa Severin lives in Chicago and works in search engine marketing. She earned her MFA in Poetry from New England College, and her poems have appeared in MoonLit, The Alembic, Seven Corners, 42opus, and The Cultural Society. She is also the managing editor of Switchback Books. Brute Fact, her chapbook, was recently released from dancing girl press.
**
Without Frames
What’s left north
What’s defined by another body
sovereign nation with borders shifting
back to a spine the same length
the persistence of a photograph
in more than one language
her eye tells me so
how clouds crowd three months of moons
the accomplishment of belief
What’s not hanging on walls,
What’s never and always there
careful not to walk on certain salts
step aside, the floorboards used to one weight,
pressure from only one direction, words
from one voice the sea
in the background how she photographs herself
how I won’t stop looking,
a ring identical to the silver in my mouth
What is a way to look at this that doesn’t ask
for a way to be still
Here now
the whiteness of walls
in the bottoms I fall to
eyes are corners
while her name isn’t spoken
still here now she’s
hanging on the wall
**
Or a Kiss on the Teeth
In the fashion
..........of the time,
..........I put my forehead to the floor.
.......... Ever since,
birds perch at points
.......... on the spine,
..........spots stuffed with summer
..........and gravel roads.
..........legs are bruises,
..........skin is one
thousand scorpions open to suggestion.
..........Sting ray and scuttle fish limbs
..........have simple whims, hands
..........split hairs, whittle nocturnes
..........from the undercurrent.
.......... Look! Like thunder
or a kiss on the teeth!
..........When we next meet
..........I’ll be mute, relieved,
..........unseen, an ocean between reach,
never and always waist deep.
**
Farside
A man says monuments are holograms,
..........pointillist,
projections viewed from lawn chairs;
..........Adirondacks that keep backs straight
while slouching. Palms,
..........mended and tempted,
trace circles in the grass,
..........shadow blades with bronzed pins.
..........If tornado-green sky,
..........if smelling atmosphere,
..........the oxidation in real time,
summer meteors radio for sleep.
..........Synapses and silence
consistent with lips, stiff as lips—
..........wash on the line,
drip dry—that’s axis and tilt. An arm
..........held, arc of string,
between latitudes, circles;
..........parallels of time
missed assumed bruiseless
..........waiting. Numb side,
..........spheres far off
..........or full view
..........sit mute,
..........domestic and insatiable.
**
return to sawbuck 2.4
**
Melissa Severin lives in Chicago and works in search engine marketing. She earned her MFA in Poetry from New England College, and her poems have appeared in MoonLit, The Alembic, Seven Corners, 42opus, and The Cultural Society. She is also the managing editor of Switchback Books. Brute Fact, her chapbook, was recently released from dancing girl press.
Labels: 2.4, melissa severin
