Two poems by Eliza Browning
Scotland Road
The sixth week of drought and the leaves unswell
themselves from the trees, pulling their cloud
of roots inward. Clouds hurry across the sky.
Their traces fade out. We are all dying in the pale grasp
of summer. Sometimes I want to be touched
in the worst way. Like a rabbit twisting in the teeth
of a dog. I don’t know what’s good for me
until it’s not. Some kinds of touch are worse
than others. On the third, the neighbor drowned
in the pond on his farm when his boat capsized
beneath the weeds. The newspapers said it was
the end of a dynasty. All summer the parade
of cars went by. All summer I translated sentences
from Latin, tracking the changing verbs:
obeo, obis, obit. In heat, the dogs crawl under
the barn, all flank and pant. Their teeth ripple
in the shadow. We are all animals cleaving open
on the split-seam of summer. In the dry season I think
of this overlapping world, all its interlocking parts.
themselves from the trees, pulling their cloud
of roots inward. Clouds hurry across the sky.
Their traces fade out. We are all dying in the pale grasp
of summer. Sometimes I want to be touched
in the worst way. Like a rabbit twisting in the teeth
of a dog. I don’t know what’s good for me
until it’s not. Some kinds of touch are worse
than others. On the third, the neighbor drowned
in the pond on his farm when his boat capsized
beneath the weeds. The newspapers said it was
the end of a dynasty. All summer the parade
of cars went by. All summer I translated sentences
from Latin, tracking the changing verbs:
obeo, obis, obit. In heat, the dogs crawl under
the barn, all flank and pant. Their teeth ripple
in the shadow. We are all animals cleaving open
on the split-seam of summer. In the dry season I think
of this overlapping world, all its interlocking parts.
Winter Colony
after Anne Sexton
Tell me it was for the flesh & nothing else.
Tell me about the hare’s foot half drowned
in snow, yarrow & mugwort to expel the baby.
Tell me about the backbone of your eighteen
winters. During the harvest, hunters found
doe blood
on a new mother’s grave, fresh as a wound
torn open. Mother, tell me what sacrament
consecrates this ground, what divine reckoning
stains this place.
In the woods the girls make offerings of their
skirts, turn them inside out. Ripple of gold
maize. Tell me what providence here. When I
stepped out of the meetinghouse the sun
was guttering above the bay & the tributary
of shining rivulets.
I am half woods & half shadow, half here
& half not: how I conjure witchlike, hungering
for gale, for barn swallows, the orchard with
its murdered trees.
Tell me about the mouse that drowned in
the buttermilk. I find myself in skins strung up
in the rafters, in the stones at the bottom of a well,
in the veil of springtime frost on the fields.
The dryness of the river bed makes winters
of us all.
Tell me it was for the flesh & nothing else.
Tell me about the hare’s foot half drowned
in snow, yarrow & mugwort to expel the baby.
Tell me about the backbone of your eighteen
winters. During the harvest, hunters found
doe blood
on a new mother’s grave, fresh as a wound
torn open. Mother, tell me what sacrament
consecrates this ground, what divine reckoning
stains this place.
In the woods the girls make offerings of their
skirts, turn them inside out. Ripple of gold
maize. Tell me what providence here. When I
stepped out of the meetinghouse the sun
was guttering above the bay & the tributary
of shining rivulets.
I am half woods & half shadow, half here
& half not: how I conjure witchlike, hungering
for gale, for barn swallows, the orchard with
its murdered trees.
Tell me about the mouse that drowned in
the buttermilk. I find myself in skins strung up
in the rafters, in the stones at the bottom of a well,
in the veil of springtime frost on the fields.
The dryness of the river bed makes winters
of us all.
Eliza Browning studies English and art history at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in 1455, Vagabond City Lit and Doghouse Press, among others. She currently co-edits Rushlight, the oldest campus literary magazine in the United States, and reads poetry for the COUNTERCLOCK Journal.
Alexey Adonin is a Jerusalem based abstract-surrealist artist. His works have been showcased locally and internationally and are held in private collections around the world. Alexey uses a unique and beautiful technique in which he layers oil paints solely on top of one another to create a mystical, transparent look. His philosophy stems from the idea that one's reality is made up of what they believe it to be. Alexey uses his art as a platform to express his profound ideas about reality, humanity, and their intertwined behaviors. You can view more at www.alexeyadoninart.com.