Sara J. Grossman
How Your Body In The Field
Whatever the field is
you want to be stitched to it:
figure rustled
to the sun’s body, a gap of owling air.
Whatever you are,
you’re not this:
all old till,
lambent and tidal.
You’re a singular,
accidental thing.
Queen of Glass Blossoms,
Crater of Face.
Whatever the field is
ached in time,
you will never be
this hard, this true.
Morning (II)
This isn’t the beginning or end of time,
but its umbra:
light’s accidentals,
its darkened shell,
magpies quartering
sky to a hexagon.
Each vein of sun
adjusts the red-wheat,
sends the ache of a thousand days
to the blue-wood aster,
ring of fire.
I Dream CALLER: [redacted] Is A Window Or Door
I know you do not like it
when I place you here
between panes of glass,
the ardor of a hinge.
But I do not know how
to keep you alive
any other way.
To put you here
was to stabilize
the memory of your
sound, to archive
the parts of your mouth
that had burned in fire.
See, I need gambrels
of cedar, corridors
that lead to extant citadels
because in them
your bustle sounds
and I’m certain of the suddenness
with which every
crystal-blue sky
divulges remarks of you
even if it’s only in dreams
that I admit this.
O my glass sweet,
my cedar night,
what is your name?
With what horror
do I now hear my own
voice dangle in reels of air-space
centuries from this language,
this scornful tomb―
Note: The phrase “CALLER: [redacted]” has been taken from September 11, 2001, 9-1-1 dispatcher transcripts. In
an effort to protect deceased callers, the City of New York has redacted all identifying information from public transcript files.”
Sara J. Grossman has been awarded fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Hedgebrook, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her poems have been published in Guernica, The Cincinnati Review, Memorious, VerseDaily, Louisville Review and elsewhere. Her current book manuscript, Mineral, was a finalist for the 2013 Kinereth Gensler Award offered by Alice James Books. She lives in New York City.
Return to March 2014 Edition
Whatever the field is
you want to be stitched to it:
figure rustled
to the sun’s body, a gap of owling air.
Whatever you are,
you’re not this:
all old till,
lambent and tidal.
You’re a singular,
accidental thing.
Queen of Glass Blossoms,
Crater of Face.
Whatever the field is
ached in time,
you will never be
this hard, this true.
Morning (II)
This isn’t the beginning or end of time,
but its umbra:
light’s accidentals,
its darkened shell,
magpies quartering
sky to a hexagon.
Each vein of sun
adjusts the red-wheat,
sends the ache of a thousand days
to the blue-wood aster,
ring of fire.
I Dream CALLER: [redacted] Is A Window Or Door
I know you do not like it
when I place you here
between panes of glass,
the ardor of a hinge.
But I do not know how
to keep you alive
any other way.
To put you here
was to stabilize
the memory of your
sound, to archive
the parts of your mouth
that had burned in fire.
See, I need gambrels
of cedar, corridors
that lead to extant citadels
because in them
your bustle sounds
and I’m certain of the suddenness
with which every
crystal-blue sky
divulges remarks of you
even if it’s only in dreams
that I admit this.
O my glass sweet,
my cedar night,
what is your name?
With what horror
do I now hear my own
voice dangle in reels of air-space
centuries from this language,
this scornful tomb―
Note: The phrase “CALLER: [redacted]” has been taken from September 11, 2001, 9-1-1 dispatcher transcripts. In
an effort to protect deceased callers, the City of New York has redacted all identifying information from public transcript files.”
Sara J. Grossman has been awarded fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Hedgebrook, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her poems have been published in Guernica, The Cincinnati Review, Memorious, VerseDaily, Louisville Review and elsewhere. Her current book manuscript, Mineral, was a finalist for the 2013 Kinereth Gensler Award offered by Alice James Books. She lives in New York City.
Return to March 2014 Edition