Patty Paine
a place that bears no scar
1.
field overgrown with loosestrife/rusted iron ramp/things fall that bend toward light/we said
this/believing nails and salt/devout/there bees/our quietest prayer/god and the boarded-up
door/everything wants named/the shed came down/then we trek
2.
we trek
brown and gray
hard and swerve
down the overspill
past the rusted iron ramp
onto asphalt
you call my name
the road’s overgrown
with old light
3.
this road
hard and swerve
crows (how they mourn)
sun and cast
abandoned rose-bed
bee balm
among shadows
we bear the weeds
pull blindly
at the boarded-up door
4.
an overgrown field loosestrife
our chests full of rocks
half-hidden along the rails
we leave a feast of nails
past the graveyard crows
ocean of loss the mounded earth
sun casts a blinding glare
towards light we bend
Patty Paine is the author of Grief & Other Animals (Accents Publishing) The Sounding Machine (Accents Publishing), and three chapbooks, including City of Small Fire, forthcoming from Hermeneutic Chaos Press. Her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Blackbird, Gulf Stream, The Journal, The South Dakota Review, and other publications. She is the founding editor of Diode Poetry Journal, and Diode Editions, and is Director of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar. www.pattypaine.com
Return to July 2017 Edition
1.
field overgrown with loosestrife/rusted iron ramp/things fall that bend toward light/we said
this/believing nails and salt/devout/there bees/our quietest prayer/god and the boarded-up
door/everything wants named/the shed came down/then we trek
2.
we trek
brown and gray
hard and swerve
down the overspill
past the rusted iron ramp
onto asphalt
you call my name
the road’s overgrown
with old light
3.
this road
hard and swerve
crows (how they mourn)
sun and cast
abandoned rose-bed
bee balm
among shadows
we bear the weeds
pull blindly
at the boarded-up door
4.
an overgrown field loosestrife
our chests full of rocks
half-hidden along the rails
we leave a feast of nails
past the graveyard crows
ocean of loss the mounded earth
sun casts a blinding glare
towards light we bend
Patty Paine is the author of Grief & Other Animals (Accents Publishing) The Sounding Machine (Accents Publishing), and three chapbooks, including City of Small Fire, forthcoming from Hermeneutic Chaos Press. Her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Blackbird, Gulf Stream, The Journal, The South Dakota Review, and other publications. She is the founding editor of Diode Poetry Journal, and Diode Editions, and is Director of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar. www.pattypaine.com
Return to July 2017 Edition