APRIL

I woke up to the natural
and artificial sounds of construction
the material of the house
two men passing a saw through a tree
a light going out, disturbed
and on a lash to keep the division
black and white, there were details…
two black snakes fucking
and a crushed nest, a wet bee
tunneling in through the wood while it rained
I came from the estate
where feral cats were shot for killing the cash chickens
I went back to school
because I felt like never laughing again
I thought there’d be a little less death
but evil is placeable, where you want it to be
the candlelight nearly blue
when I’m alone, rejecting
the immediate halo
there were those undisclosed moments
of my life I loathed, felt I should have seen
that I was made for the profession of seeing
that I was made for a profession
I disagree, I don’t want to be afraid of time
whatever a living means
there were cloves in a jar for a cake
a day for making coffee and not wanting to die
an appropriate time to love thursdays
and a line that meant something
there were birds that lived in the house
a moon in the corner always
there were things I loved that bored me
there were cats in the cornfield I lied about
it’s kind of hard to see in the dark when the rifles are out
I didn’t see anything in the cornfield

I came back dark from my wildlife

Installed in more spiritual purpose

There was, at a time, an unburdened lucidity

In the modern anthology

There was, later, a room of language

Exhausted by an impulse

A voice curtailed to the average

Interest haunts me publicly

Inverted shadow, harboring

An unbridled form

Of knowing I’ve discounted

And departed from

To be disarmed of the habitual

Absence I’ve been wielding

To be lent a more protective armor

To emanate through

An object returns me

Involuntarily to my life

An altered coat

Needing altering

A ring of stones

Behind the blinds on a sill

Still, it was embarrassing

To be submissive to a tendency

Toward the natural

It felt common

Riding through the paragraphs

Of woods, lifting the bike across the tracks

And waiting for the train

Its windows of blank cargo

Overnight the eyes

Become morning’s animal

In exacting absence there was

An archaic quality

Trapped thread in a triptych of sky

Pine laid at the feet of dead trees

I’ve been walking linguistically

I’ve been in contact with my shame

As a contemporary

With the usual affectations

Once, in a past life, I was

Once, in a former life…

Work passing

Through the filter of a long form

Producing what?

Is this witness

I’ve been collecting

In a painterly way

Passing the nylon house

At the woodline

FREE HUGS on cardboard

Tacked to a tree

Blue feather for Emily, called back

From her day body

Emanating from the ground

Like a Degas

Walking the canal there was

A cloud shaped like Italy

In town there was a delivery

Of pastel balloons

I’m asking for a friend

To break into historical houses with

I know an artificial eye

Is fillable

That delicacy

Would be a good name

To write under the tables

Of all academies of the heart

A painting is an archive of air

Jennifer Valdies is a poet from California currently living in Western Massachusetts. With Hunter Larson and Allie McKean, she co-edits Little Mirror, a critical archive and biannual journal of poetry. Her work can be read in Annulet, FENCE, and elsewhere.