Tuesday poem #77 : Emily Carr : whosoever has let a minotaur enter them or a sonnet—

) a splitbrain grace note

imagine it: fleshlyness.

leapfrog slingshot see (like eve throwing apples sideways from the trees.

gravity curls fernstalk, a red wind licks

your elbows. in current downriver singing the ocean grows. smoke bellies the flagpole.

slimankled oaks dream in soil.

he goes ahead coatless lightsoaked. breathing in folds, like a fish. he deals all his selves (was it a rib or catgut

like the corollas of a dying sun how/ brilliant

the galaxies of cow parsley, canolacoloured corn…      sour cloudbanks, & tambourines of sun—.

gravity puckers like an open wound.

the orange trees are torched, intoxicated, howling.           from where he stands, observing

me as if I/                                            were grass or dead,

or a sonnet: foxlike, the young flesh of shoulders.

in & out of the trees dark margin—in the green light my saltstripped hair.

where trout lilies used to be the roots of haunted dead.

like an ocean of surface becoming/                                          no surface he would create all white matter from the dark &

unpetal. violet drizzle; wet buttocks; heapedup jewelweed. the delicate fin of a bewildered fish.

where the fireworks leave off: mosquitoes

resume. a mutt tethered to a leafless trunk. Christ is turned back remains/            turned.

a cock crows. cicadas churn cemetery flowers.

a god with too many arms & then one without any has his way with a girl.

on your white chair deciding if tomorrow

will start on the left/                 or the right hand

of god: green fire makes a parabola, licks the cat velvet sky. wellwater pours from a stone dolphin.

the birds & their little psalms scatter

in their saintcoloured clothes, sunflowers choke statues. flower music inside burnt rubber. a catjoy clawsharpening. cornfield testaments

of the unwrapped dead. listen. even this will be taken from you finally,

Emily Carr directs the Low-Residency MFA at OSU-Cascades. She is passionate about the rediscovery of Mississippi poet besmilr brigham, the sexual politics of meat, the limits of Achilles’ honesty and the problem of Chaucer’s spring, unposted love letters, cannibal chickens and a ship too late to save the drowning witch. Emily has been a finalist in seven national poetry competitions, most recently the National Poetry Series. Her second book of poetry, 13 Ways of Happily: Books 1 & 2, was the winner of the 2009 New Measures Poetry Prize. Another book of poetry, directions for flying, was the winner of the 2009 Furniture Press poetry prize. whosoever has let a minotaur enter them or a sonnet—, prose poem fairy tales, is forthcoming from McSweeney’s in August 2015. For more information about Emily and her work or to read excerpts & link to videos, visit www.ifshedrawsadoor.com.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan