"Garden Collage" by Kelly Emmrich
Two poems by Katherine Fallon
Knoxville, 2002
The geese eat from her palm, pecking
at the biscuit she crumbled inside
the upstairs café, which she hoped
would impress me as it opens over
the river as though this muck were
a field of flowers. Over bird calls
and the stench of algae, her perfume:
notes of honey, chocolate. I wonder
where, having studied her wrist,
her throat, her placid face, the rent
between her breasts, which must be
imagined now, bundled and blue-toed
beside her in the winter river weather.
The dock is spattered in bird shit.
She does every single thing just right.
It makes no sense what’s missing,
but it is missing all the same: I am
transfixed, feel she cannot be real.
If she had it her way, I would also eat
from her palm, wanting nothing
more than what she has. If I had it
my way, I would want that, too.
at the biscuit she crumbled inside
the upstairs café, which she hoped
would impress me as it opens over
the river as though this muck were
a field of flowers. Over bird calls
and the stench of algae, her perfume:
notes of honey, chocolate. I wonder
where, having studied her wrist,
her throat, her placid face, the rent
between her breasts, which must be
imagined now, bundled and blue-toed
beside her in the winter river weather.
The dock is spattered in bird shit.
She does every single thing just right.
It makes no sense what’s missing,
but it is missing all the same: I am
transfixed, feel she cannot be real.
If she had it her way, I would also eat
from her palm, wanting nothing
more than what she has. If I had it
my way, I would want that, too.
At Your Ex's Dance Recital
Sickly mesmerized, I have paid to watch her move:
bare feet padding along the stage, sweat frenzied as rain
against a window, custard swell of breasts beyond
the neckline. You do not know that I am here, translating
the arch of her back into a phantom rocking above you
in dark spaces. I have come to learn from her what else
you might want from me, beyond need. Night after night,
the shrill ringing. Her voice at all hours. I hear her ask
if I am there and chew my cheeks while you calm her.
Might as well share our bed, the way she shares our bed.
Inserted in all ways but this: her talent, her magic bones.
The flash of canines as she opens herself to breathe.
bare feet padding along the stage, sweat frenzied as rain
against a window, custard swell of breasts beyond
the neckline. You do not know that I am here, translating
the arch of her back into a phantom rocking above you
in dark spaces. I have come to learn from her what else
you might want from me, beyond need. Night after night,
the shrill ringing. Her voice at all hours. I hear her ask
if I am there and chew my cheeks while you calm her.
Might as well share our bed, the way she shares our bed.
Inserted in all ways but this: her talent, her magic bones.
The flash of canines as she opens herself to breathe.
Katherine Fallon is the author of The Toothmaker's Daughters (Finishing Line Press, 2018). Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Colorado Review, Juked, Meridian, Foundry, and Best New Poets 2019, among others. She shares domestic space with two cats and her favorite human, who helps her zip her dresses.
Kelly Emmrich is an illustrator and animator living and working in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her work has appeared in the magazines Moonhood Magazine, Dream Noir, and Meat for Tea. She studied creative writing and animation at the University of Mary Washington. She is currently working as a beer label designer for a microbrewery in Afton, Virginia and also as a freelance animator and illustrator.
