{"id":51,"date":"2011-05-20T02:04:49","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T02:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/poetry\/?p=51"},"modified":"2011-05-20T02:04:49","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T02:04:49","slug":"four-poems-by-jenn-marie-nunes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2011\/05\/20\/four-poems-by-jenn-marie-nunes-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Four poems by Jenn Marie Nunes"},"content":{"rendered":"

There: PDX
\n(Wouldn’t That Make a Great Story?)<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Say we write it in a story. That thing she said an ugly affair the friend who made you Nair his back. Say we write it all in a story & start over again the same. Say we publish that story & the next the next the same. Say there is a reader. Say we are the reader. Say we read the story with pleasure after all we wrote it with pleasure say we never get bored with our story who says there\u2019s more than one? Say we even become rich buying it & eat mangoes & yachts & now the story sets the gold standard & has lots of Bordeaux. Say then one day there is a naked child in the story small fatness in the grass small tow-headed lollipop. Sudden pink skin. It is our only flaw. Try to come home from that. Try to find home. <\/div>\n

——<\/p>\n

There: SoCal
\n(Hands Have Short Memories)<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Look west. We’re not going that way into the sunset soft out of everyone’s lives. Suck it up kid have a milkshake. Have the perfect skipping stone. This is the golden state where my hands are not hands like saints have hands traded up to greater. Not hands to steady roughen in the earth make seeds into fruit. Live it out on one maybe two pairs of thighs. But then even without gold we all have things we want stolen. There are oranges out there truckloads full. I could peel them forever & never touch another flesh. Tamp a hollow in the dead grass for us to curl up feet to feet spine to spine. We could live off oranges & gin. I shouldn’t say these things out loud love. You\u2019ll have to tie me by the wrists love. Blossom of cool air against my palm. Thanks for not hanging on too hard. The way the stone suspends the way it sinks like a stone. <\/div>\n

——<\/p>\n

Where: NO
\n(Stop Drinking Stop Drinking or You Won’t)<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tell me your zombie contingency plan the one with the black lake & canoe tipped on its head. Tell me how thick the mud the pond scum soft & caressing your calves tell me it won\u2019t swallow. It scares me when you say things like blood. Tell me it\u2019s not your body. Not the movie alive in our cellar. Tell me it\u2019s my body my pheasant scent dulling your eyes to coin. Tell me we won\u2019t go     up the stairs     won\u2019t without windows      won\u2019t think we know the stars      think we know who won\u2019t die.
                                                                      The zombies are in the cabinets breaking glasses in the bedroom bumping walls. I tell you I wish they\u2019d pull my guts out have done. I tell them I taste like roses like yam. They pat my head. It\u2019s the dead fur burn of your breath they can\u2019t stand.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Tell me your zombie contingency plan the one where the water is warm as my mouth. It\u2019s a good place to float I can tell you it\u2019s on the third act. Zombies & I we\u2019re taking the train to the coast. Tell me clear nights without running & how zombies don\u2019t swim. It\u2019s not celestial it\u2019s not the planets in a cross. <\/p>\n
This is more whisky<\/div>\n
than blood.      This is your skin peeled back like the sticker on an apple beneath the softness browning the place we stood toe to toe rotting us into the sea. Tell me you\u2019ll never stop paddling & I promise. I\u2019ll eat you first. I won\u2019t leave them one bone. <\/div>\n

——<\/p>\n

There: PDX
\n(Beasts of Burden)<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Say you have a tractor. We are in the streets of New York.
\nFaces follow in pale cauliflower concern. Say
\nyou have a tractor in the streets of the city we are riding
\n& it is June. Say slow turning over. Out there
\nit is strawberry season & we have the tools
\nhere in the city we are riding through the city
\nplow the lights the grid smell of diesel & hay.
\nSay we’re not wearing underwear. It is all a matter of time.
\nDarling say you are the tractor grinding through the city
\ndamn cars & I am a cat sunning in the second-story window
\nlooking down. Say you are the tractor & I am a little red cat
\nfrom toe to tail sleepy in the sun & the road buckles
\nbeneath your wheels & fumes & a seed or two.
\nI tend nothing but my coat.
\nSay there is a tractor & a cat sunny in the glass
\nstorefront the tractor driverless mauling straight
\nfor the cat asleep in her display the yarn
\ndaisies the silver wrapping-paper sky. It is time
\nto wake up. Darling
\nwe are the tractor & we are the sunny cat
\nin the glass looking down like angels
\nlook down on stories they think
\nthey themselves have written. The people frozen
\nin their fantastic train-wreck streets we
\ntheir emergency are terrible girlish are grinding beast
\nrows & rows of cauliflower all waiting:
\nthe world must make sense<\/i>.<\/div>\n

——<\/p>\n

Jenn Marie Nunes<\/strong> holds an MFA from LSU. Her poetry and fiction appear in such journals as Bateau<\/i>, Monkeybicycle<\/i>, the Alice Blue Review<\/i>, elimae<\/i> and the Sonora Review<\/i>. Her chapbook, “Strip,” is forthcoming from PANK in July. She is a member of New Orleans. Some say she has pretty eyes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There: PDX (Wouldn’t That Make a Great Story?) Say we write it in a story. That thing she said an ugly affair the friend who made you Nair his back. Say we write it all in a story & start over again the same. Say we publish that story & the next the next the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}