Thrush Poetry Journal
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Jill Alexander Essbaum

Heart, I will return in Spring
 

with hands to hot, green sky and I

will pluck the grass on your dirt’s curbs. 

And I will paw the clays and browns

and I will dig up everything

your air exudes. And I will sneakthief

plums, your apples and your bones.

Never say I’m stealing all

you own. The cottages. Their cool,

curled smoke. Black radish in the field.

The farmers’ wives. The sons of farmers’

wives.  My lover won’t return

with me. My lover won’t return. 

Not to the winehills or the goat

corrals. Not to the river where

the birds wear bells.  Heart, I will

return to peg my dress on night’s

stone lintel. Let my reticence

go red on lips of whisky jars.

I’ll perl my skin into a sword

and charge the moon. Her roundabout,

resuscitating mouth. Her white

and otherwise unfathomable cloud.




Jill Alexander Essbaum is the award-winning author of several collections of poetry including, most recently, Would-Land (Cooper Dillon Books, 2020).  Her first novel Hausfrau (Random House, 2015) debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List and has been translated into 26 languages. Her work has appeared in dozens of journals including Poetry, The Christian Century, Image, and The Rumpus, as well as multiple Best American Poetry anthologies. Jill is a core faculty member in The Low Residency MFA Program at University of California-Palm Desert. She lives in Austin, Texas.




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