Soft Fire
I hold your heel while you wail;
my mouth skull-cracked.
Kiss your arches
wet with work to grow
& turn over. My guts crush
a gravel patch in our greet
each day.
Checking for your breath
in night, I mill prayers,
tread stairs, patterning:
please, thank you, & amen.
Pulled from a bone-wreath
lifted from a cut pocket, its smile
frowns when I raise you.
Before, I have been burned
linen, only scars. Now you
reel my string. Anchor
yourself in my tatters.
From my throat
you are the rock expelled
calcified green marl, metallic
veins, finally in light.
You are my thick bawl
held in,
made: out.
The Other
I have been
a see through
girl, gauze in all
illuminations.
A colossal banquet
of air, chewed
cheeks, sharp-cubed
corners of bouillon
nibbled, wrapped,
replaced. Jars screwed,
cupboard closed.
Wiped counter.
I was not there.
Or where the milk
went down one swig.
Instead, positioned
in a decolorized lavatory
doing violent pliés,
while scrubbing at these
diminishing teeth, &
punching at my guts.
Outing
Now & now, now stretch
ahead a pasture expanse:
fur tufts & grass brittled.
Teeth. A ewe in the field
dropped, torn by beaks
& low dogs. Red blooms
from white and again.
Again again.
*
The light’s harvest-brass,
sun in tarnish. Bees pelt
fading the equinox,
drones thrown clear out.
Late insects past singing.
Lady bees feed
on hung berries in sag
skins. Brambles arbor, scraping.
You dab me, scratched.
My head a continent.
What I ground-dropped started,
sprouts in straw. The seed, small,
swelled, but no crack. A rain,
but no split. Not split.
*
Back home I hoped
everyone who rode bikes
through new puddles fell,
blew stinging Bactine
into prism-red wet
& orange knees.
Jill McKenna Reed is a poet, writing instructor, and beekeeper living in Portland, Oregon. She is co-editor of “Winged: New Writing on Bees,” an anthology of modern literary writing. Jill earned her MFA in Creative Writing Poetry at Portland State University. She writes television criticism for fun. Jill is a native of the Chicago area.